Stage 3 tax cuts

[think positive]

[David]

[think positive]

didnt answer my question, what equates to wealthy in your mind? total worth? income?

[Skids]

[David]

Don't forget the rate for $120,000 to $180,000 was 37% before. So if I'm reading that correctly the upper bracket's rate has gone from 45% to 30% for earnings above $180,000 and 37% to 30% for earnings between $120,000 and $180,000. So for someone on $200,000 a year that's a total saving of around $9075 a year in taxes. For someone on $50,000 a year, in contrast, the total annual tax cut is just $125. Four times the salary, eighty times the tax reduction. Nice if you can get it!

I don't buy into the mindset of the deserving rich and the underserving poor. Many people on relatively low incomes work damn hard in positions they've trained for. What's the average salary for an aged care worker, or a primary school teacher? Some corporate consultant or financial adviser taking in a six-figure wage is hardly a harder worker. They're just in a more lucrative industry. And they're already earning enough to live a far more affluent lifestyle, so even if I accepted that they "deserve" a break, they hardly need it any more than those struggling on a quarter of their wage.

didnt answer my question, what equates to wealthy in your mind? total worth? income?

One of the articles I posted above suggests that someone is rich if they're earning $156,000 a year or more. That sounds fair enough to me.

[stui magpie]

Earnings are relative. You don't need to disrespect people on low wages to also make the valid point that most people earning between $100-200k work frikken hard for that money.

1 example, an executive manager at a Metro health service would be getting between $200-300k, next level down $120-160k. For that, they hold responsibilities that have them working after hours and weekends. You don't get overtime in those roles, you don't get a nice neat 7.6 hour day where you can go home and switch off until your next shift.

I've worked with lots of people earning good money, when I was in health I was on $160k and not by any measure would I have been considered rich in reality.

All these tax changes do is compensate for bracket creep. You want people to be aspirational, want to improve their lot and earn more money. Tax brackets need to regularly move to reflect people's growing salaries not penalise them.

Having a 30% tax bracket for everyone between $45-200k then a hike to 45% for over $200k is fair to me.

If I was doing it I'd have 40% between $200-500k and 50% over that

[David]

[think positive]

So you reckon someone should only get 25% of their pay packet! I don’t care if it’s tom cruise, that’s bullshit! And you wonder why people find loop holes!

You say you choose to earn much less than you can, do you claim any benefits? Are you paying back your HECS bill? Why do you expect someone on a higher income to pick up your slack?

[David]

Not sure I understand your questions, TP. What slack are people with higher incomes picking up on my behalf, exactly?

[think positive]

So I wrote my answer, then deleted, we have done thus enough times.

[eddiesmith]

David’s figures of just 4% of people earning more than 156,000 is interesting and yet Labor think upsetting 4% of the population would be disastrous? How many of those would vote for them anyway?

Plus the 4% obviously includes those over 200,000 so the amount of people actually affected must be quite small? Hardly seems a vote loser to dump it?

[David]

So I wrote my answer, then deleted, we have done thus enough times.

It’s news to me! I wasn’t sure we’d discussed my personal finances at length.

But if you’re curious about my HECS repayments, I’ve been slugged pretty hard last few years. I’m talking a couple of thousand in debt after each tax return that I have to spend the next twelve months paying off. My mistake is having two jobs and just being over the repayment threshold when they’re combined. Obviously I’m not crazy about the system regardless of how it affects me and would like to see it abolished.

[think positive]

but you have the ability to earn more, and solve that problem quicker, and maybe get out of the renting cycle. yes you want a free education system, and cheap quality rent. nothing is free, someone pays for it, stop expecting others to foot the bill because you have chosen to work at a lower rate than you can.

[Skids]

You use very selective sets of figures David.
Let's not forget, someone on $50k only pays $7k tax to start with and a person on $180k pays almost $60k.
The person on the higher income will also pay 250% more for Medicare, for the same service.

[pietillidie]

You use very selective sets of figures David.
Let's not forget, someone on $50k only pays $7k tax to start with and a person on $180k pays almost $60k.
The person on the higher income will also pay 250% more for Medicare, for the same service.

Obviously; that's why Australia is not the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Or would you prefer to be a citizen of the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

David, you make the same mistake every time in that you conflate social policy with personal morality, which is silly. Morality is social and always and ever about the greatest good for the greatest number. And that means societies need a balance between incentive and broad-based productivity.

It's not about you and your guilt complex, nor the delusional twat who reckons he's so superior to you he deserves a palace and you a cardboard box, destroying the possibility of your children being productive and ultimately wrecking his own society and market.

It is, however, about trying to make the whole of society maximally productive and successful, and that takes a balance between access and possibility, as well as further incentive for the disproportionately successful.

Destroy the ability of lower-income people to succeed and have the hope of being successful, and they wreck society. Destroy the ability of the ambitious to achieve more by their own standards, and they turn to persecuting others and wrecking society.

Both directions make everyone worse off and wreck the whole.