So both The Australian and the Australian Financial Review have published an AAP story today about the Gonski reforms. Its to be financed out of ‘savings’. That’s been code for tax increases since the Rudd-Gillard government came to office.
But this bit caught my eye:
Mr Swan again attacked the opposition for its plans to roll back income tax cuts linked to the carbon tax if elected in September.
“Under the Liberals’ changes, seven million Australians will have their taxes hiked up,” he said in a statement.
“For a mum and dad earning $65,000 each, the Liberals’ tax hike would mean their family would pay $600 more a year in income tax alone, while Tony Abbott himself would only pay an extra $3.”
That statement was published on March 4. The AAP story on March 10. On March 6 Ross Gittins slammed that statement.
There’s just one small problem. This stuff is so misleading as to be quite dishonest.
Yes. That is Ross Gittins calling the Swan statement misleading and dishonest.
The most glaring omission from Labor’s calculation of the hip-pocket effect of all this is its failure to acknowledge the saving households would make from the abolition of the carbon tax.
Based on Treasury’s original calculations, this should be worth about $515 a year per household, including $172 a year from lower electricity prices and $78 a year from lower gas prices.
Some Labor supporters argue that even if the carbon tax is abolished, prices won’t fall. This is highly unlikely. The state government tribunals that regulate electricity and gas prices would insist on it. And a Coalition government would no doubt instruct the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to police the wider price decrease.
Labor’s repeated claim to have tripled the tax-free threshold from $6000 to $18,200 a year has always been literally true, but highly misleading. That’s because it conveniently ignores the complex operation of the low-income tax offset.
When you allow for this offset, which Labor has reduced and changed without removing, the effective tax-free threshold has increased by a much smaller $4500-odd from $16,000 to $20,542. This explains why the tax cut arising from the seemingly huge increase in the threshold is so modest (for many, $5.80 a week) and also why the move yields no saving to anyone earning more than $80,000 a year. For them, the threshold increase has been ”clawed back”.
And income tax rates for low-income have increased.
Now when even Ross Gittins is launching into the government on this point, you’d expect that everyone would sit up and take notice.
Can anyone advise when the tax free threshold rise from 6k to 18.2k takes effect? Is it this financial year 2012-13 or last financial year 2011-12?
Bejeezus, when a clown/ hack like Gittins goes after you, you know your time is severely limited only containing nothing but pain. Enjoy Goose!
Free Advice,
the new tax free threshold began first of July 2012 for the 2012/13 financial year. Just go and check http://www.ato.gov.au for the details
It’s not actually so lie, just incomplete and very misleading and deceptive. Par for the course, in other words.
How can you argue with this (sarc alert)?
From the AAP site. What is going on when newspapers take ALP press releases off the AAP site and recycle them?
Er, no. Does anyone take him seriously?
testing
Remember that the economic imbecile Swan was the one who said before the 2010 election the coalition were ‘hysterical about the ALP bringing in a Carbon Tax’. We now know that to be a barefaced lie on his part, and I hope the good folks up there in Lilley remember that fact on polling day.
A lot of journalists are basically lazy…