soc I comment on your proposal to add 1% to the GST as follows
According to my calculations (correct me if wrong), this will provide an additional $5 billion p.a. in revenue to be allocated to disaster migation and recovery.
Per aunnum!! Do you mean to sayt that you are proposing that the tax (The great Big New Tax) be permanent?
If not all is spent in any year, it can be rolled over to later years. If more is needed in any year, it can come out of accumulated funds or general revenue. But we will always have that buffer of $5 billion already sitting there.
Accumulated funds and general revenue are a function of taxes collected. That is the very thing that the blues hate so much especially that component of it that has been derived from income rather than indirect taxation.
This seems to me a perfectly sensible, ,equitable, and practical solution to financing a Permanent Disaster Fund, which avoids cutting other programs such as the Greening Australia programs.
The amount of tax paid under a GST is a function of expenditure (as oppossed to income). So it is not surprising (you are obviously blue) that you look upon a tax on spending as being equitable. The lower income earner who spends all of his income (because he has to) is taxed 10 (more with your proposal) percent in the dollar. The high income earner pays zilch on what he squirrels away. Using your obvious skill with the quill, could you add to your post a clear and precise explanation as to why you think that a further increase in the GST would be, then, equitable. I am sure that many will be relieved when you do.
