ImSpartacus2 wrote on Sep 13^th, 2014 at 10:14am:


What follows is an article from the SMH in May 2014 And its just the tip of the iceburg.  Google Australia opened new offices in Darling Harbour in mid 2009 and derives revenue of 2 billion but its total tax expense was $466,802. Similar story with Apple. And none of this is to mention the corporate welfare they recieve and Taxpayer $$$ from dirty deals.  Remember $880Million payed out to Abbotts mate Murdoch straight after Abbott won the election.  OH yes it was all above board I'm sure. 

"Budget pain? Not for millionaires who pay no tax


“Pain all round”....

The latest tax statistics show 75 ultra-high-earning Australians paid no tax at all in 2011-12. Zero. Zip.

Each earned more than $1 million from investments or wages. Between them they made $195 million, an average of $2.6 million each.

The fortunate 75 paid no income tax, no Medicare levy and no Medicare surcharge, even though 60 of them had private health insurance.

The reason? They managed to cut their combined taxable incomes to $82. That’s right, $1.10 each.

Cutting taxable income that far doesn’t come cheap.

Forty-five of the uber millionaires claimed a total of $64.4 million for the “cost of managing their tax affairs”. That’s a staggering $1.4 million each. (As a point of comparison an entry-level H&R Block consultation costs $49.)

At face value the figures suggest these super-high earners were prepared to spend an unlikely half of their incomes on tax advice. A more likely explanation is that they received far greater incomes than they reported and spent only a portion on tax advice.

....
n work-related deductions, for things such as car expenses and clothing. Ten claimed a total of $5 million for donations and gifts, a category that includes political as well as charitable donations.

And they ran loss-making businesses.

The 30 who were in business reported total business income of $121 million offset by expenses of $122 million. Those who ran farms carried over $61.5 million in earlier tax losses and lost an extra $3 million in 2011-12.

there are 15million tax payers in Australia.  do you think that whinging about 75 of them somehow means anything?  and in NONE of these cases was the tax minimisation illegal.  how about concentrating on the vast, vast majority of people who pay all their tax and at huge rates compared to average-or-below earners.

no I don't.  your entire argument is that because someone has something, then they should have large amounts of it taken from them.  your position is little more than wanting the taxation system to punish people for success and wealth.  do you deny it?  Your type of argument ALWAYS flows from the mouths of the low paid who are already not merely subsidies but have their lives paid for by others.  40% of earners in this county pay ZERO net tax.  who do you think pays the rest?  those high earners or wealth y people you hate so much.

you are just a greedy lazy bugger who wants what everyone has but is unprepared to work for it.

why don't you try and KNOW what I think on a topic before expressing comment on it. I don't have problems with our tax scales.  I don't have problems with negative gearing.  there are very few people who avoid tax like you claim. and the title of the thread is your basic envy-based 'someone else should pay for my life' argument.  a great deal to criticise there!

cods wrote on Sep 13^th, 2014 at 9:58am:


Actually, I think you will find (to use your words) that most economists (if not all) and Mr Warren Buffett (watch the interview) are of the view that one person with a lot of money tends to spend far less then a lot of people with the same amount of money. It really is pretty obvious when you think about it.  The average billionair may pay 10 times more for, lets say, 10 pairs of jeans he buys each year compared to 2 pairs of jeans the average person buys each year. But when you consider that there are 22 million of us compared to what, 20 of them, who spends the most in your opinion.  Go on, take a guess. 

As to who is rich, the interview with Warren Buffet discusses this also.  And its basically that you have a progressive system of taxation that says the more welth benefit you receive from the society the more tax you should pay so that it goes up in increments.  IMO the average Australian pays enough tax but the welthier Australians do not pay enough and they think they are entitled to pay less tax because they put absolutely no value on the benefit they receive from the society that has made their wonderful standard of living possible. If they focused on the true value that they get from being in a society where everyone does everything for them for a pittance I think they would be prepared to pay more and we might defuse a lot of unnecessary tension that has built in this community because these people think they are entitled to even more. 

Do you agree with the 3 propositions set out in the OP, yes or no and why?   

Ah Comrade - squeeze the "rich" for all they have right?

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 13^th, 2014 at 5:48pm:



What I have written is 100% true yet you deny it.