The 2020 Budget (boomer trigger warning), page-87

UT I think your idea of "fair" comes from a hard-working but wealthy perspective, unless you would consider the tax threshold to be around $100k..... that would be reasonable.

Yet, imo, it is "fair" to tax the wealthy more as the proportion of tax to income ratio needs to be more balanced. Those on very low incomes would pay a higher proportion of their income (different to percentage) than wealthy people.

Yes, I get your point about working harder, but it must be that you haven't had to do the kind of hard work that poorer people get paid for. I'm certain you've worked your butt off to get where you are and no doubt its been tough..... but try to place yourself in a position of drudgery, digging trenches all day for a pittance for example - a job, just a job, to put food on the table with nothing left over to enjoy. That is harder work than, for another example, myself, who studied full time for many years, worked three different jobs at once, rarely seeing my growing kids, so I could pay off the mortgage and lift myself out of the menial, boring and arduous work my upbringing and youth had destined me for.

The studying gave me the way out of the drudgery, and yes, at times I did similar work to digging trenches. Many others are still there digging trenches while I took an opportunity to break out of the drudgery. Its a hard thing to find such opportunities when everything seems to block you from moving forward.

There are good reasons for our "progressive" tax system.