Most younger Millennials and all Gen Z-ers would have never purchased clothing, shoes, books or even petrol without also paying a 10 per cent levy on top of the base price of that product.
It’s probably not something many think about regularly, if at all, given that tax – the goods and services tax, or the GST – came into effect in 2000.
Imagine no GST: Younger Millennials and Generation Z probably can’t.Credit: Natalie Boog
While that was more than 20 years ago, the introduction of the GST was the last major tax reform successfully introduced by any federal government. And that’s a problem.
As our population ages, Australia is going to need to spend more on increasingly expensive services such as health and aged care, while facing fewer people of working age to pay income tax – which happens to make up the greatest proportion of federal income.
The problem is one that all economists (who can never usually agree on anything) are in furious unison over: Australia needs tax reform.
Danielle Wood, who starts as head of the Productivity Commission today, said in a recent speech that Australia has a fiscal challenge.
Spending on the NDIS, increasingly costly medicines through the Medicare Benefits Schedule, aged care and defence are all forecast to grow at a rapid pace.
The government also relies heavily on income tax to fund these necessities. In this year’s federal budget, it expected individuals to pay more than $300 billion in income tax, more than half the government’s total tax revenue take (excluding GST, which gets handed straight back to the states).
This is a problem, said Wood in her Fairbairn lecture in Melbourne last month because,“We are asking future generations to bear the costs of today’s inaction.”
Higher GST? Negative gearing changes? Why we’ve got to talk about tax
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12.11.2023
Most younger Millennials and all Gen Z-ers would have never purchased clothing, shoes, books or even petrol without also paying a 10 per cent levy on top of the base price of that product.
It’s probably not something many think about regularly, if at all, given that tax – the goods and services tax, or the GST – came into effect in 2000.
Imagine no GST: Younger Millennials and Generation Z probably can’t.Credit: Natalie........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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