All4One (a good Marxist tag that) suggests a 30% revenue tax. In effect this is a call for a 30% GST. The electorate is wary of increasing the percentage and scope of the GST, so moving it to 30% would not be politically possible. I imagine that if one includes net GST paid by the listed companies, the ATO's tax take would look very different, and even more so if one included employee tax collected for the ATO.
Staz024 wanted somebody to explain why banks only pay 5% income tax on their revenue. Having a taxable income of about 17% of revenue is far above average performance, and with taxation at 30%, that translates to 17% x 30% = 5.1% of revenue. Maybe the banks should hire good tax accountants to reduce their tax – ANZ, CBC, NAB and WBC paid 6.5%, 6.7%, 6.2% and 5.3% respectively, which suggests that their respective taxable income to revenue ratios are 21.67%, 22.33%, 20.67% and 17.67%.
The odd thing is that when banks publish their profits, the squealing classes squeal like stuck pigs about the “banksters” obscene profits, and call for a Command Economy, some perhaps hoping for the shoulder tap inviting them to take command. I have not read any of Friedrich Hayek's books, but I have admired his choice of two titles, The Road to Serfdom, which I presume suggests that advocating for a Command Economy is akin to begging for serfdom, and The Fatal Conceit, which I presume means that those who wish to command an economy are conceited if they think they would deliver better results than a free-enterprise economy would.
For all ASX listed companies, the information listed is already on public record, so there is an element of political grandstanding about the list. 30% company tax is high by international standards, so increasing it would encourage firms to move more profits to lower-taxed countries. According to
https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/se...x-rates-online/corporate-tax-rates-table.html the international average is 23.72%, but it is a very crude number, so suffice to say, less than Australia's 30%. Many countries with higher than 30% corporate tax have high levels of tax avoidance, and/or basket-case economies. The Australian tax take could potentially increase if corporate tax were lowered.
Also, if company X has IP created in Country Y, and it augments that into saleable items or services in Country Z, and it sells the end item/services to Australia, where is the profit made? An Australian baby food manufacturer exporting to China would not pay Chinese company tax, even if they employed a few people there to foster their business, which raises the question, when would the Chinese taxation authorities get its slice of the action? So as much as politicians might blether, the matter is not easily resolved.
The knife should be taken to Government wastage – helicopter rides, travle junkets, chaufers, payments to ex politicians, state funerals and all sorts of things, including welfare. I included trivial items, but my experience is that when profligate behaviour is observed in small things, further digging will unearth a profligate culture that extends to big-ticket items too. As a a retired consultant in the expense-reduction game, my experience is that one starts with small savings that incur little opposition, then with a record of success, one moves up the chain, and when one has the political highground, go for the big ticket items. I could write a weighty tome on this topic.
