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https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2025/may/29/superannuation-super-debate-australia-tax-system-built-for-the-rich>
"The unhinged criticisms to changes in superannuation make more sense when you
realise that Australia’s entire tax debate is geared to ensure rich, wealthy
people and companies get richer and wealthier.
The government’s proposal to reduce the tax concessions on earnings on super
balances above $3m has been the ultimate case in point.
It will affect only 0.5% of people with super and would take many decades of
governments not increasing the threshold to affect anything close to even 10%
of people, and yet you would think the government is about to seize the means
of production.
So divorced from reality is some of the commentary that the
Australian
Financial Review thought presenting a scenario where someone’s super grew
$1.18m in one year to $3.18m was a winning argument against the tax because
that person would be required to pay (gasp!) $1,528 in tax.
The new argument is that the tax is bad because people will just find other tax
rorts to make use of. (Great, let’s go after those as well!)
Because avoiding paying tax is pretty much the point of the system for wealthy
individuals and large companies.
For example, right now, numerous commentators who are against the changes to
super are also saying we need to cut company tax to ensure competitiveness.
Less mention is made that many large companies pay little or no tax, including
in some of the most profitable sectors in Australia.
My colleagues at the Australia Institute found that from 2014-15 to 2022-23
Queensland LNG projects delivered $310.1bn total income for gas companies but
they paid just $966m in company tax – or just 0.3% of total income (and all of
that was paid by just one company)."
Remember kids, taxes on the wealthy must only go down, never up.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
