Australian budget

By Leith van Onselen Business Council of Australia (BCA) boss, Jennifer Westacott, has decried the “ideological hatred” and “business-bashing” supposedly griping the nation, and is preparing a new offensive to push the Turnbull Government’s company tax cuts through the Senate.

Nice work, Guv, from the Parliament Q&A: Lowe has jumped into the debate on corporate tax cuts in a big way.

By Leith van Onselen With One Nation holding the balance of power in the Senate, leader Pauline Hanson has signalled that the party will vote against a proposed 0.5% increase in the Medicare levy to finance the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

From “Racism” Rob Burgess: As reported recently, the reality is that the ‘effective’ tax rate for Australian companies is well below US company taxes, even after President Donald Trump slashed the headline rate from 35 to 21 per cent.

By Leith van Onselen MB has frequently questioned the merits of government policy that forces Australians into private health insurance, and argued that diverting subsidies away from private health insurance into the public system would lead to more efficient health outcomes.

By Leith van Onselen Amid all the hoopla over company tax cuts, it’s easy to forget that hundreds of companies across Australia haven’t paid corporate taxes in the last decade.

By Leith van Onselen Deloitte Access Economics partner, Chris Richardson, has joined the conga-line of economists calling for company tax cuts, claiming the economy would benefit to the tune of $20 billion a year.

By Leith van Onselen The ACT Government has joined its NSW/VIC peers and cashed-in on the population ponzi, using its monopoly on land sales to halve the Territory’s Budget deficit.

By Leith van Onselen Treasurer Scott Morrison went on the attack in Parliament yesterday, claiming the link between company tax cuts and higher wages was “pretty simple”: “If you want businesses to pay workers more, you don’t force them to pay the government more,” Mr Morrison told parliament.

By Leith van Onselen The media is buzzing today with articles lobbying for Australia to cuts its company tax rate.

UBS wraps it up nicely: Government flags household tax cuts are likely As we highlighted in the MYEFO, a cumulative $9bn (or ½% of GDP) better than expected budget (Figure 3) provides some room for household tax cuts.

By Leith van Onselen In the 2014 Budget, the Coalition Government ripped some $80 billion of funding from the states’ budgets over the next 10 years: $50 billion out of grants for hospitals and $30 billion out of grants for schools.

By Leith van Onselen Late last year, the Turnbull Government implemented university funding reforms to make it harder for students to access the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) for courses that have poor employment prospects, thereby effectively ending the demand-driven university system established by the Gillard Labor Government.

By Leith van Onselen Western Australia looks set to follow the New South Wales, Victorian, and South Australian Governments’ lead in privatising its land registry in a bid to raise some quick cash.

Corporate tax cuts are dead.

By Leith van Onselen They may be whacky, but One Nation has done the right thing by the nation in refusing to support the Turnbull Government’s company tax cuts.

By Leith van Onselen I’ve noted over recent months how a wide disconnect has opened up between the pay rises being received by federal politicians and senior bureaucrats compared with the rest of the population.

By Leith van Onselen The legends over at The Australia Institute (TAI) have launched the above television campaign against the Turnbull Government’s company tax cut package.

Via the AFR: Scott Morrison dismissed Treasury advice that Labor’s negative gearing policy would have only a modest impact on house prices because he did not believe it.

By Leith van Onselen After recently recovering some $5 billion in unpaid taxes from multinational firms in just 18 months, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is now investigating 27 multinationals over $78 billion in potentially dodgy revaluations used to get around anti-tax avoidance rules.

By Leith van Onselen I have complained repeatedly that Australia’s universities have turned into ‘degree factories’ since student numbers were uncapped in 2009, whereby universities teach as many students as possible to accumulate Commonwealth government funding through HELP/HECS debts.

By Leith van Onselen Treasurer Scott Morrison has argued, yet again, that the proposed across-the-board reduction in the company tax rate to 25% from 30% will boost wages and job security, noting that US companies have already begun increasing wages in the wake of the Trump administration’s tax reforms.

By Leith van Onselen Labor leader, Bill Shorten’s, comments to the Press Club claiming Australia’s private health insurance industry is “treating Australians like mugs” and “gouging people on the basis of a con” has earned a strong rebuke from the industry and the Turnbull Government.

By Leith van Onselen Over the past 18 months, reports have emerged documenting the billions in taxpayer funds that have flowed to consultants, especially the Big Four accounting firms.