Britons face a shock as household costs soar – and some unexpected items such as beer also go up
It’s been dubbed “bleak Friday” by some: pre-announced price rises for many household bills are to take effect on 1 April, adding to the misery for consumers who are already paying more for goods and food than this time last year.
Continue reading...Reluctant to make big fiscal changes, chancellor Rishi Sunak considers tax adjustments and fuel duty cut
The Treasury has drawn up a range of options to help with the cost of living crisis – including a 1p cut to income tax, raising the national insurance threshold and a significant cut to fuel duty.
But government sources said Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was still reluctant to make big fiscal changes.
Continue reading...Tory MPs and business groups urge chancellor to scrap increase intended to fund NHS and social care amid fears of stagflation
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under renewed pressure from MPs and business groups to rethink plans to increase national insurance next month, as fears grow that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will dramatically worsen the cost of living crisis and plunge the economy into “stagflation”.
Both Tory and Labour MPs believe Sunak can still be persuaded to ditch the 1.25 percentage point rise – announced last September to fund the NHS and social care – and want him to use the potentially devastating effects of events in Ukraine on prices as justification for what they say is an urgently needed U-turn.
Continue reading...Government’s ‘trickle down disaster’ will further entrench inequality between men and woman, Greens say
Tax cuts planned to take effect in 2024-25 are highly regressive and would pay male beneficiaries twice as much as women, separate analyses by the Australia Institute, the Greens and the Australian Council of Social Service have found.
The so-called stage-three tax cuts will remove the 37 cents in the dollar tax bracket, lower the 32.5 cent bracket to 30 cents, and raise the top tax bracket to start at $200,000 compared with $180,000 now. All up, the cuts will cost about $184bn over the first decade, the groups said.
Continue reading...Australia’s high court finds the higher rate of tax for working holiday makers is discriminatory and breaches treaty with UK
A British backpacker who worked as a waiter in Sydney has won a long-running legal dispute against Australia’s “backpacker tax” in its highest court.
On Wednesday the high court ruled in favour of Catherine Addy, finding the tax which slugged working holiday-makers thousands of dollars more than Australians discriminated against her on the basis of her nationality and infringed a treaty Australia signed with the UK.
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Continue reading...Tax havens cost governments at least $245bn a year in lost revenue – and many of these havens are British. In fact, the country is leading the world in hiding legitimate money and laundering dirty cash. So how did we get here, and how has Britain managed to preside over a third of the world's lost taxes?
Continue reading...Data leak published by ProPublica fuels calls to tighten up system which sees ultra-wealthy pay little or no tax
The revelation last week that the 25 richest US billionaires have paid very little tax even as their fortunes have soared has reignited demands for wealth taxes on both sides of the Atlantic.
An unprecedented leak of “a vast trove” of 15 years of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data to the investigative news site ProPublica has provided a staggering insight into the legal strategies the very rich deploy to avoid tax.
Continue reading...Tim Pallas announces plans to strip single-gender social clubs of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charities
The Victorian government has taken a swipe at exclusive men’s only clubs, announcing plans to strip them of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charities and social associations.
Victoria’s treasurer, Tim Pallas, is preparing to deliver the state’s 2021 budget next Thursday, and staring down an eye-watering bill from the devastating Covid-19 second wave. In order to raise revenue Pallas has announced new land tax measures, expected to bring in an extra $2.7bn over the next four years.
Continue reading...Australian Labor party gathers online to endorse slimmed-down election platform and debate industrial relations, trade and foreign affairs. Follow all the latest updates, live
Delegate Nizza Siano has put forward this one:
Labor’s policy should be framed to provide a positive and compassionate approach by a Labor Government to the treatment of refugees, rather than a reaction to the punitive and cruel approach of the Coalition Government. Refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia are to be welcomed under a Labor Government as assets who enhance this nation and our economy and provide positive contribution to our strong multicultural society.
In this chapter, Michael Danby will move this motion:
Labor calls on China to abide by its own constitution and laws which expressly allows for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people within the People’s Republic.
Tibetans must be allowed, as they are under Chinese law, to freely practice their religion, to learn and speak their language and to have official documents in the language of the vast majority of people living in the Tibetan autonomous zone.
Continue reading...Official figures have missed £800bn of private assets, says thinktank, amid calls for wealth tax to fund Covid recovery
Almost a quarter of all household wealth in the UK is held by the richest 1% of the population, according to alarming new research that reveals a historic underestimation of inequality in the country.
The study found that the top 1% had almost £800bn more wealth than suggested by official statistics, meaning that inequality has been far higher than previously thought. Researchers said the extra billions was a conservative estimate and could well be more.
Continue reading...Successive cuts will cost federal budget three times what is spent on public schools, Greens leader to say in push to have next round scrapped
Income tax cut packages since 2017 will cost the budget $325bn by the end of the decade, with high-income earners capturing 58% of the benefit.
That is the result of a Parliamentary Budget Office analysis prepared for the Greens, released on Saturday ahead of a speech by Adam Bandt vowing to use the balance of power to force a future Labor government to repeal the next round of cuts.
Continue reading...Victoria reports no new deaths as NSW Health warns of several new Sydney locations linked to Covid-19. Follow all today’s news
NSW says a new cluster of three people is likely linked to an existing cluster. The premier Gladys Berejiklian is also warning that the public will be told of “additional venues, additional locations” to respond to during the day.
The remaining three cases of community transmission are all linked, and that source is being investigated by Health. Health has not ruled out also being able to establish a link between that new cluster of three people and also an existing cluster. It’s also important to note that we anticipate during the day there will be additional venues, additional locations, which we’ll be asking the public to respond to.
We anticipate that because we’ve identified these eight cases, that a number of close contacts and family members could be found to be positive as a result, so it’s really, really important for everybody to stay on high alert, look at the information which Health provides during the course of the day, and please react and make sure you take that advice. If you’re asked to get tested and stay home for 14 days, please make sure you do that.
In NSW, another four cases were recorded from returned travellers.
Of the eight locally-acquired cases, one is under investigation and seven are linked to a known case or cluster. NSW Health said:
One new case reported today was locally acquired, is likely to have been infected some days ago and appears linked to the Liverpool Hospital Dialysis cluster. Four more cases are close contacts of this case.
One new case is locally acquired whose source is under investigation. The remaining two cases today are close contacts of this case.
Testing numbers have dropped recently, which is a concern. NSW Health renews its call for increased testing across Sydney, even if you have the mildest of symptoms like a runny nose or scratchy throat, cough, fever or other symptoms that could be COVID-19.
This is especially important for people across West and South West Sydney with these new cases and after the state’s sewage surveillance program detected fragments of the virus at the North Richmond and West Camden treatment plants.
Continue reading...Josh Frydenberg’s budget relies on tax cuts and business incentives, but rests on some optimistic assumptions. Follow all the reaction and coronavirus news
Meanwhile, once upon a time
I know it is a bit much for her to be morally consistent but. https://t.co/jKpD1iHTu7 https://t.co/UmUUfDSMfe pic.twitter.com/U7WUbxPPXP
High from being retweeted and quoted by Donald Trump, who proved he had learned more about the seriousness of Covid by forcing public employees to drive him around in a sealed vehicle, and then removing his mask for a photo op, Miranda Devine continues to do Australia proud, making even a Fox News host raise an eyebrow
"It's incredibly selfish of older people or neurotic people who are timid & afraid & won't come out of their basements to confine children & young people to miss out on the most important part of their lives" - Fox News is now straight up blaming old & vulnerable people for Covid pic.twitter.com/mLhiwDHmrN
Continue reading...The Coalition’s stage 2 cuts give medium-income earners up to $1,080 – for one year – but those on high incomes a permanent cut of $2,430
The government has chosen to stick with tax cuts as its big-ticket stimulus measure and so medium-income earners will get a tax cut of up to $1,080 for one year.
Continue reading...Penny Wong says treasurer should have ‘the courage’ to take responsibility for error as Coalition faces calls to expand wage subsidy
Labor will attempt to pressure the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to appear before the Senate’s Covid-19 inquiry to explain the “$60bn black hole” in the jobkeeper program.
The move comes as the Morrison government faces growing calls to expand the wage subsidy to cover a wider group of workers, after revelations on Friday that the six-month program is now expected to cost the budget $70bn rather than $130bn.
Continue reading...Channel island politicians back proposal that married women should have equal tax rights
An “archaic” tax law on the island of Jersey in effect deeming that a wife’s income belongs to her husband is being scrapped.
Politicians on the Channel island have backed a proposal that married women should have the same income tax rights – and responsibilities – as their husbands.
Continue reading...Currently, married woman can only discuss her taxes with government if spouse says so
If you’re a married woman in Jersey and you want to discuss your tax affairs with the government, better ask your husband’s permission first.
No, this is not an excerpt from a 1950s guide to managing finances but the current reality on the self-governing island. But this could finally be about to change.
Continue reading...Tax reform dominated debate, as ministers discussed East Timor and the 2000 Olympics – and resisted climate action
On 1 July Australia’s goods and services tax will have been in place for 20 years. It is uncontroversial in concept, with no major party advocating its abolition. Every so often there are calls for it to be increased from 10% or expanded – calls that are usually rebuffed.
But just how fraught the GST was to introduce is one of the key insights from the release of cabinet papers by the National Archives of Australia, covering the years 1998 and 1999. There were other concerns: East Timor’s independence, the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the failed republican referendum, and familiar resistance to doing anything but the minimum on climate change.
Continue reading...PM’s apparent blunder over £12,500 threshold could benefit him amid ‘factchecking’ row
Boris Johnson has said he wants to raise the national insurance threshold to £12,500, letting slip a major Tory tax cut from the manifesto as he was speaking to workers in Teesside.
The prime minister blurted out the key announcement as he was pressed by an employee at a fabrication yard about whether he would help “people like us”, not just the rich.
Continue reading...Wealthy see potential taxes imposed by Jeremy Corbyn as bigger threat than Brexit
The super-rich are preparing to immediately leave the UK if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister, fearing they will lose billions of pounds if the Labour leader does “go after” the wealthy elite with new taxes, possible capital controls and a clampdown on private schools.
Lawyers and accountants for the UK’s richest families said they had been deluged with calls from millionaire and billionaire clients asking for help and advice on moving countries, shifting their fortunes offshore and making early gifts to their children to avoid the Labour leader’s threat to tax all inheritances above £125,000.
Continue reading...