Category Archives: Tax

Doctors warn Australia risks being ‘odd one out’ if it resists sugar tax on soft drinks

Posted on by

Exclusive: Peak medical body claims Australia could collect $814m annually through a sugar tax, which it says 85 other countries have already implemented

The federal government is at risk of being the “odd one out” internationally if it resists implementing a tax on sugary soft drinks, the Australian Medical Association says, reigniting its calls for a 16 cent levy for every can in an attempt to slash obesity cases and raise funds for public health campaigns.

The AMA said Australia could collect $814m annually by implementing a sugar tax on fizzy drinks, a move it says 85 jurisdictions around the world have already taken.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Philip Ruddock’s Sydney council challenges legality of GST levies on local government

Posted on by

Exclusive: Hornsby mayor was a cabinet minister in Howard government when it introduced the tax in 2000

A Sydney council led by the former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock is spearheading a high court case arguing that GST levied on local councils is unconstitutional.

The challenge by Hornsby shire council questions the legality of the goods and services tax it has paid since it was first introduced by the Howard government in 2000.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

NSW stamp duty refunds expected to attract 2,500 applications as land tax scheme launches

Posted on by

Coalition’s program allowing choice of annual tax over stamp duty could exceed projection of 6,000 applicants

About 2,500 people are expected to retrospectively apply for refunds to stamp duty paid on new homes bought since the middle of November when the New South Wales government’s land tax scheme officially begins.

New estimates from Revenue NSW suggest almost half of the 6,000 new owners who were expected to apply to have their stamp duty payments waived in favour of a land tax in the scheme’s first year will come within days of its introduction on Monday.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

David Pocock wants stage-three tax cuts revisited in light of shrinking workforce

Posted on by

ACT senator suggests ageing population with proportion of taxpayers declining means situation has ‘changed significantly’ since cuts legislated in 2019

New data on Australia’s ageing population and shrinking workforce should push the government to review the stage-three tax cuts, independent senator David Pocock has said.

Pocock said economic circumstances have “changed significantly” since the Morrison government legislated the tax cuts, with Labor’s support, in 2019.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

Labor under renewed pressure to axe stage-three tax cuts as Australia’s budget woes mount

Posted on by

The party voted in support of tax cuts while in opposition and went to the election promising no changes to the policy

Warnings from the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, that Australia’s economy is slowing and that the population is ageing have prompted calls to scrap the stage-three tax cuts.

Chalmers said the latest Australian population data showed an ageing population continues to present a demographic challenge for Australia and the budget, with the government having to keep one eye on current challenges, while the other focuses on longer term needs in health, pensions and support services.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

Man who fired gun inside Canberra airport was on parole for attempted murder – as it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed

Butler defends decision to cut Medicare-funded psychology sessions

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, is speaking to ABC Radio following his decision Monday to cut the number of Medicare psychologist sessions. He’s come under serious heat for the move which experts say is “appalling.”

This program has been around for a number of years, and it has for many years had a limit of 10 sessions for people to access over that long period the average person has used 4 - 5 of those sessions.

This is a good program, I’ve been familiar with it for many, many years, but its problem has always been one of equity.

The evaluation found that the lowest-income communities have more than twice the levels of mental distress as the highest-income communities, but they get the lowest level of support and, under this program, that inequality was substantially worsened by these additional 10 sessions.

People like Prof Ian Hickey said at the time that those additional sessions in a sector with a limit workforce, was going to have the effect of cutting out other people, meaning other people couldn’t get any support whatsoever.

And the evaluation I .. released on Monday showed exactly that, that it had the impact of cutting more people out of the system. Most of those people were in some of the poorest communities, where the evaluation said there is the highest need.

The recommendation of the report was we would consider additional sessions for people with complex needs, now this system was not designed to focus on people with complex needs.

Continue reading...

Australian tax office and police raid 35 businesses as part of crackdown on sales-suppression software

Posted on by

Raids were part of an international crackdown on those suspected of supplying and using illegal tax-avoiding tools

Police and the Australian Taxation Office have raided 35 businesses across five states as part of an international crackdown on the use of software to avoid paying tax.

The ATO said the raids, conducted with the Australian federal police, targeted businesses suspected of supplying and using illegal electronic sales suppression tools (ESST) in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

Continue reading...

Proposed work-from-home tax changes would mean lower deductions or more paperwork

Posted on by

If adopted, Australian Tax Office draft guidelines would cut 80c flat rate to 67c and affect tax returns from next July

People working from home would lose hundreds of dollars in tax deductions if new draft guidelines released by the Australian Tax Office are adopted.

Under the proposed changes, those working from home would not be able to claim expenses such as internet, electricity and mobile separately using the popular shortcut method, which sets out a flat rate for hours worked at home, rather than calculating the actual costs.

Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Government to crack down on NDIS provider fraud amid warning scheme will soon cost $50bn annually

Posted on by

Bill Shorten says $126m earmarked in Labor’s October budget will help protect national disability insurance scheme ‘from crooks’

The federal government is creating a “fraud fusion taskforce” to try to claw back nearly $300m from national disability insurance scheme providers, amid warnings the NDIS could cost more than $50bn annually within four years.

The new body, which will replace the existing NDIS fraud taskforce, will target “fraud and serious non-compliance” with the help of law enforcement, regulatory and intelligence agencies.

Sign up for our free morning newsletter and afternoon email to get your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Poorer families risk £1,000 hit from earnings-related benefits rise

Posted on by

Below-inflation rise would save exchequer tenth of £40bn to be given out through tax cuts, says thinktank

If the government raises benefits in line with earnings rather than inflation next year, it would drastically cut the incomes of poorer working-age families, while saving less than a tenth of the cost of recent tax cuts, a leading economic thinktank has calculated.

Such a change, which would mean a significant real-terms cut given that wages are rising at 5.5% with inflation close to 10%, could see the effective income of some families reduced by up to £1,000 a year, the Resolution Foundation said.

Continue reading...

NSW stamp duty overhaul ‘vanilla’ but could help first home buyers cut costs

Posted on by

Annual tax could be paid for almost 20 years before it equalled the value of a stamp duty payment in parts of western Sydney, calculator suggests

First home buyers could save tens of thousands of dollars under the New South Wales government’s proposal for an optional land tax but housing experts say the “vanilla” plan falls well short of the “revolution” it had initially promised.

On Monday the government said it would introduce its plans for an overhaul of stamp duty into the state’s parliament this week.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

NSW trial to allow prospective first home buyers to swap stamp duty for ongoing land tax

Posted on by

Buyers will be able to choose a $400 annual fee and 0.3% of the land value while it’s their primary residence instead of stamp duty

Prospective first home buyers in New South Wales will be able to see how much money they would save by opting in to an ongoing land tax instead of stamp duty, with a new online calculator.

The government will introduce legislation this year to trial the First Home Buyer Choice from January.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Albanese urged not to ‘lose the moment’ for tax reform as he squashes debate on stage-three cuts

Posted on by

Economists say the tax cuts are unaffordable and should be trimmed or changed, either now or in May

Economists have urged the federal government not to squander the chance for tax reform, after the prime minister hosed down speculation about possible changes to the legislated stage-three cuts in this month’s budget.

The chief executive of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, said she would be “sad” if “we lost the moment” for a substantial discussion about tax changes and hoped a broader debate was still possible before the next budget in May.

Continue reading...

Growing number of Australians want the stage-three tax cuts scrapped, poll shows

Posted on by

Public opinion for repealing the package jumped 7% from the previous month as people become better informed about the consequences

Public support for the stage-three tax cuts continues to fall, with polling showing increased support for scrapping the $243bn plan.

The last stage of the Morrison government tax reform is not legislated to come into effect until July 2024, but a downturn in the economy has put increased pressure on the Labor government to make a decision on whether it will keep the cuts in place.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Whistleblower Richard Boyle feared ATO tactics would cause ‘suicide in community’, court hears

Posted on by

Boyle hopes he will be protected by public interest disclosure laws after he aired claims of aggressive tax office debt collection methods in 2018

The whistleblower Richard Boyle has told a court of his fears that the actions of the Australian Taxation Office would lead to “suicide and death in the community”.

Taking the stand in a hearing seen as a critical first test of whistleblower laws, Boyle alleged ATO employees were put under pressure to bypass normal negotiations with taxpayers who owed money and move quickly towards more aggressive tactics.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Albanese meets Solomons PM – as it happened

Posted on by

Anthony Albanese meets with Solomons Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, who reiterates ‘no foreign military bases’ pledge. This blog is now closed

Skill shortages ‘an indictment on the failure to plan’: skills minister

The National Skills Commission’s annual update of the skills priority list is out today, showing the number of occupations facing skills shortages have almost doubled in past year.

Well, I wouldn’t say exactly that. I would say, though, it is very high that we have so many occupations where there are significant shortages.

I mean, the fact that it almost doubled in a year speaks to a labour market that is crying out for skills. But also, it is an indictment on the failure to plan, invest in education and training to have the skills our labour market, our economy and our employers need and our workforce need so that they can find good jobs.

We do need to make sure, 1) the investment in education and training is in the right places so that we supply the skills needed for our economy now and into the future. And, of course, 2) we need to have a much faster way of delivering on the skilled migration pathways for industries that are crying out for skills. And whether they be nurses or tech worker, baggage handlers. Wherever you look across the economy, there are shortages and it is a very significant priority of this government.

Conditions haven’t changed that significantly.

The government went to the last election saying again and again they would honour the legislated tax cuts.

In the time since we’ve seen in Australia interest rate rises yes ... but we’ve seen an Australian economy that continues to perform very strongly.

Continue reading...

IFS: Millions in Britain ‘face stealth tax raid’ under Liz Truss’s plans

Posted on by

For every £1 given workers by cutting tax rates £2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculates

Millions of households are facing a “stealth” tax raid under Liz Truss’s government despite her promise to support workers through the cost-of-living crisis by lowering their tax bills, Britain’s leading economic thinktank said on Wednesday.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that for every £1 given to workers by cutting headline tax rates, £2 was being taken away through a freeze on the level at which people begin paying tax on their earnings.

Continue reading...

Kwasi Kwarteng set to address Tory conference with authority on the line after 45% tax rate U-turn – UK politics live

Posted on by

Chancellor expected to give changed address after confirming plan to axe top rate of income tax has been scrapped

Q: Where does this leave your credibility?

Kwarteng says he has been in parliament for 12 years. He says ministers do sometimes change their minds.

I decided, along with the the prime minister, not to proceed [with the policy].

Continue reading...

Majority of Australians back sound economic management over keeping promised tax cuts, survey suggests

Posted on by

Almost half of those polled support axing stage three cuts while one quarter thought they should be kept

Support for the stage three tax cuts remains low with the majority of Australians backing sound economic management over sticking to election promises, a new survey suggests.

The research from the Australia Institute found that high-income earners were particularly likely to support the repeal of the stage three tax cuts, despite being the main beneficiaries of the changes.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Mini-budget 2022: pound crashes as chancellor cuts stamp duty and top rate of income tax – live

Posted on by

Tax cuts to cost Treasury around £37bn in 2023-24, official figures reveal

There are no urgent questions in the morning, and so Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, will be delivering his statement soon after 9.30am.

The Commons starts sitting at 9.30am, but they always begin with prayers in private, and so Kwarteng will be up a few minutes later.

The last time they did it one third of the beneficiaries were people buying second homes or buy to let, so we are sceptical that this is the magic bullet to increase homeownership. What we really need to do is to build more houses and to help get people onto the property ladder by increasing the supply of housing.

When this has been done before, it has often fuelled an already hot market and many of the beneficiaries have been people buying a second or third home, rather than the first time buyers that we really want to help who are often trapped in private rented accommodation where they’re paying as much in rent every month as they would in a mortgage.

Continue reading...