Labor costings suggest it will deliver a bigger surplus
The headline is misleading. The costings don’t suggest any such thing – Labor is claiming it will deliver a bigger surplus.
[Bowen claims that] There will be $154 billion in extra revenue over 10 years, coming from five areas of tax reform — franking credits, negative gearing and capital gains tax, trusts, multinationals and accountant deductions, and superannuation concessions;
Source: News.com.au
It is easy to show, that all of the claims are a joke:
- Franking credits: People who weighted their super heavily toward fully-franked shares precisely to have an income in retirement, will be forced to sell their shares and many may end up on the Age pension. The precedent of taxing individuals and SMSFs and not funds or companies will have further side effects.
- [Abolishment of] Negative Gearing and Capital Gains tax [discount]:
In October, independent modelling showed that “Labor’s $32 billion plan to end negative gearing for existing homes and slash the capital gains discount would lead to a fall in new housing construction of up to 42,000 dwellings over five years and 32,000 fewer jobs across the country”, see “Bill’s costings exposed“ - Trusts: Do Bowen and Shorten seriously think that people won’t move their capital out of reach of his grasping socialist claws and into a company structure?
- Multinationals: It is one thing pointing out the profit-shifting taking place and quite another collecting it. Swan was aware of profit-shifting and failed to do anything about it. Hockey started to address it in the only way possible, by agreement with other countries – that doesn’t happen overnight. Australia’s position in the top quartile of taxation of multinationals will result in less foreign investment.
- Accountant deductions: LOL! High income individuals will simply employ their accountants in a company structure.
- Superannuation concessions: A nation’s wealth is built on savings, reinvested into infrastructure, mining, energy, manufacturing and other enterprises. The Shorten team regards *your* savings as their entitlement, to waste on unnecessary welfare and voter bribes. Jobs created by investment of super will *reduce* welfare expenditure.
But Bowen doesn’t even mention the biggest cost of Shorten’s policies: his 45% Renewables policy, which will add 336,000 to the unemployment queue, costing up to $7.5b per annum (with the other job losses, totalling 506,000) and loss of income tax revenue, because unemployed people don’t pay tax.