We do not have an expenditure problem in Australia, we have a revenue problem. Both large and small business are grossly evading their taxation responsibilities.
It has been well publicised, the billions of dollars that business is ripping off through clever manipulation, and in the case of many small businesses stealing tax revenue through failure to pay over GST, running the cash economy, avoiding their obligations with company and income tax etc.
Tough talk from the government is not going to solve the problem, only action will do. If the government decides its all too hard, then I don't see why ordinary working Australians should carry the can for these business crooks through a hike in the GST!
The Liberal rhetoric that they are a low tax government is a lie, low tax for their business mates, whilst shifting the tax burden onto workers and pensioners!

I'm getting heartily sick of Western Australians banging on about not getting their 'fair share'.

Pretty well since its inception we in the east had been propping their state up. All those decades of sending bucket loads of grant money to keep it afloat doesn't seem to matter a jot. Royalties from the Bass Strait fields was part of the funding that provided annually up to an extra $30,000 per person in WA. There might have been a few murmurings about the distribution but nothing like the belly aching we are hearing from the West. Most just saw it as a necessary part of moving money where it was needed to provide all Australians with services.

When Labour tried to secure some of that boom money from the huge profits of the big miners WA circumvented it by increasing state royalities by hundreds of millions of dollars. When the mining tax was abolished the royalty increases stayed.

Because of the mining boom WA wants the formulas regigged in their favor. No doubt when the boom peters out back they will come with their hands out.

What a greedy bunch!

What garbage Steely.

For decades Qld WA & to a minor extent Tasmania & South Australia were ripped off by import duties making everything they bought ridiculously expensive. This was to support industrial jobs in the south eastern states NSW & Victoria. This rip off went on for far too long'

We then saw decades of SA & Victoria supported by grants to industry, particularly the car industry. Now we see billions wasted with the most inefficient ship building bunch on earth in South Australia.

We still see it in the bloated university sector, clustered in the south east as it is.

To say the capital of over paid bureaucrats, Canberra, should be given extra help shows the handout mentality at it's zenith.

You lot are very lucky Queenslanders & even WA folk are so easy going, or they would have seceded years ago & left the rust bucket states to whither away.

Paul, companies pay the exact amount if tax they are required tp pay and if the taxation laws are inadequate, then revise the laws.

However, prior to doing that you should first weigh up the pros and cons of such changes as while some companies may not pay as muchbtax as you would like, they generate a lot and, considering the cost if doing business here, changes may just be to our detriment.

In other words, be careful what you wish for.

The other interesting point is that those predicting the increases in revenues this new tax will generate, is that they assume there will be no change in spending patterns.

But, nothing will change the fact that any increase will only effect those who have already paid their taxes, the consumer, as businesses claim their tax back.

Butch,

Are you saying there are no businesses out there who are not illegally pocketing the GST? The cash economy, one of the worse offenders for that are the small retailers who fail to declare income. Some years ago it was estimated $7 billions in GST was not being paid to government. Granted, multinationals have the resources to avoid tax in Australia, that has been well documented. It may be "legal" but is it fair? Even Comrade Turnbull has his dosh stashed away in the low tax Cayman Islands

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-attacks-malcolm-turnbull-over-investments-in-cayman-islands-tax-haven-20151014-gk8pg9.html