Cash grab

[VALKIE]

Politicians are addicted to money.  There will never be sufficient money to satisfy voter demands.  Therefore they have to think of cunning ways to collect more money.  The day will come when solar subsidies are discarded and fossil fuelled vehicles will pay an addition (and annually increasing) emissions tax.  With some luck and careful planning I'll be dead by then 

Its truely sad that you would even think that way ( even in jest)

Income tax in Australia is obscene.
Workers pay up to 48 cents in the dollar for the right to be screwed over.
Add GST which should have eliminated income tax, and more than half of a workers income is taken by the greedy grubberment.

In the last 15 years of my employment, i barely got 1/2 of my bonus for working above and beyond.
This is another windfall for the grubberment who do not even meet expectations, let alone exceed expectations.

I did write a letter to howard the coward complaining about this and got a letter back, thanking me for my contribution and that it woukd be used to advance Australia.

That particular year, i paid over $60,000.00 in tax.

[tom60]

The amount of money politicians allocate to themselves is miniscule compared to the total tax take.  The issue is the politicians need the money to feed the ever increasing demand from voters for support, services, infrastructure, etc.   

Perhaps if legislation were passed where a citizen received an allocation of votes based on the amount of personal income tax they paid annually we might see a change in the response from politicians.  The very rich, who tend to pay almost no tax would get few votes.  And those living on social security (eg, the unemployed, etc) wouldn't have a vote.  All those small business owners who pay little or no tax wouldn't get much of a vote.  The politicians would then focus and listen to the demands of people who pay the most income tax.  The tax payers (voters) would want their personal tax rate to go down, but would also know that would reduce the number of votes they had.  Those with few or no votes would be encouraged to pay more income tax if they wanted to increase their influence. 
Meanwhile, having been on a salary all my working life and paid a high income tax rate, I now find myself retired and living on my personal superannuation saving tax free.  So don't ask me to vote for the above and become disenfranchised.   

Yes I remember the Howard Govt introducing the GST where all the collected revenue would go back to the State Govts on the proviso they gave up all their various state taxes.  The state I was living in at the time gave up its taxes by converting them to levies or duty, which they then claimed weren't taxes.

However the major issue is whether the government revenue system should be "user pays" based or "ability to pay" based.  The current system is a mixture of both.  With 'user pays' you own a Isuzu and pay for the right to drive it on the provided infrastructure.  With 'ability to pay' you make enough money to be able to afford to provide the funds to provide the infrastructure whether you use it or not.