S3TC analysis, page-24

If you made the ATO trully independent they could look at absolutely everything without political bias even the most unappealing to the electorate.
Basing the taxes on the most efficient, most productive & even least inflation impacting taxes if that was appropriate.

So if they did a full, comprehensive tax review analysis of the Australian economy & started with a blank sheet of paper you may end up with some of the old ideas like getting rid NG, amending CGT, mining taxes or new ones like increasing GST, death duties, a transaction tax, scrapping franking credits etc etc.

The only parameter the government would need to provide was how much they wanted to spend each year for the next 5 years.
Changing the expenditure would trigger a change in the tax levels & that's where the political accountability would come in.
Especially if you had specific taxes for specific items such as medicare levy & healthcare costs.
I favour greater transparency by reducing income tax rates & increasing medicare rates with no net tax raised to better match the tax raised & expenditure made on health.
NDIS spend increases for example would have a direct impact on tax levels year on year.


What is popular is not always right & what is right is not always popular.