The Write Direction: That processed feeling

DO you ever get the feeling that something isn’t right and that you are being politically processed into believing spin, instead of fact?

Whilst the Prime Minister believes in creating as few shocks as possible, his Treasurer, who eventually wants to succeed him, appears hell-bent on achieving change in order to cement his eventual move into the top job.

In order to do this Dr Jim Chalmers needs to quickly get on top of our national debt problem and his only way to do that is via taxation changes.

Basically, every voter in Australia will loudly call “NO” to any re-arrangement of the tax system that requires them to pay more tax.

So, this endeavour requires the Treasurer to go about it in a way that suggests future changes will be better for all of us, and widely broadcasts that revenue neutral changes will deliver that.

The obvious response to these tales is: why would you change the tax system in order to produce no change to what or how we pay?

In life, the only reason to change a tax system is so that it provides more money for the government, thus leaving the taxpayers worse off.

In order to effect such a change, we the taxpayers need to feel comfortable that the system needs changing, therefore the Treasurer needs to disguise the ultimate reason for change by spinning good tales of perceived positive results.

One obvious alleged positive is the aspiration to provide cheaper housing for younger residents, so good luck with that goal. The probable method of achieving more tax income to provide subsidies to assist home ownership is to take funds from those older members of society who already have their own homes and have been paying them off for several decades.

Whatever method our government decides to use in order to create more tax revenue for them to reprioritise their political direction, will create angst in the minds of its voters, especially when it’s the whole structure of the system that could need changing.

One considered in the past has been, don’t tax income, tax expenditure.

This method generates the incentive for people to maximize income but then only be taxed when they spend it.

Obviously, any changes to the GST won’t work because that tax is distributed amongst the States, so no benefit to the Federal Government.

By John BLACKBOURN