Dear rehctub,

Whether we preserve, modify, or change the system
that we have created is ultimately up to the
people themselves in this country. The following
link gives some thought to the debate as to -
should rich people pay more taxes. Read it and
see what you think:

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-rich-people-pay-more-taxes

Rehctub,

You assume that because the rich pay more taxes that they therefore must have created more wealth for society and are actually hard done by if they are asked to pay more taxes. To see the problem with this argument, consider an old-style banana republic. 2% of the people own 98% of the wealth. Apart from a tiny middle class, the bulk of the population are ragged peons toiling for bare subsistence on the estates of the elite. It is obvious that the money to run the government has to come from the elite, since the peons don't have any surplus over what they need for bare survival. So you have 2% of the people paying all the taxes. What terrific lifters and what rotten leaners! Now imagine what would happen to the economy of that country if all those peons just disappeared. The peons are creating wealth. It is just that the bulk of the wealth they create is expropriated by an unjust social order.

Of course, Australia is a lot better than that, but there is still labour exploitation and crony capitalism. There are rich people who have created far more wealth for the community than they have taken for themselves, but there are also plenty of people who have gotten rich by being greedy and ruthless or by taking advantage of government sanctioned monopolies, as well as the rich people who were just lucky. Since the rich benefit more from our society than other people, they ought to be taxed at a higher rate. If your house or car is more valuable than average, it will cost you more money to insure it.

Superannuation ought to be for providing decent living standards in old age, not for providing a tax shelter for people who can well look out for themselves. I would like to see a system where taxes on super depend on the amount accumulated and all tax concessions end when people have accumulated enough for a comfortable retirement.

Wrecktub: Is this the sort of "unfair" taxation on the rich you are complaining about?
Tax Office statistics reveal the 55 millionaires who paid no tax
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tax-office-statistics-reveal-the-55-millionaires-who-paid-no-tax-20150429-1mw2zp.html
Fifty-five of Australia’s highest earners paid no income tax at all during 2012-13, not even the Medicare levy.
All earning at least $1 million, they managed to write their taxable incomes down to below the $18,200 tax-free threshold, although for most the exercise was expensive.
Tax statistics released Wednesday reveal that 40 of them claimed an extraordinary $42.5 million for the “cost of managing tax affairs” meaning they each paid an average of $1 million to an adviser prepared to help to bring down their taxable income, which is itself a tax deduction.
Between them they reported earning $129.5 million, an average of $2.3 million. By the time their accountants had finished with them they reported losing a combined $12.8 million.

I must apologise to Poirot, I had not absorbed this post which I in effect duplicated.
great minds think alike?

It's really a universal questions and the answer lies in human psychology.