Tax reform (sorry)

The Australian Federal election has just happened. I know it happened, because the advertising is being pulled down. Nothing else will happen. It's not just because the government was returned, it's because, quite frankly, it's better if they do nothing, & people tend to close their eyes & ignore things if they do something.

No matter how many promises are made, delivered, or broken, these will come down to spending more on one thing over another, or else spending less on many things. There are no other options. As an economic genius once told me: there's only so much pie. Yes, you can increase the size of the pie by raising taxes, but there's still only so much you can do before the peasants revolt, so nobody wants to bake too much in.

I digress.

Tax reform.

The last time this country had any - real tax reform - the government's income was radically shifted by the introduction of GST. Any value-add tax changes the shape of both how we pay tax & how it is provided to the government. The first is seen in, say, lower taxes & higher prices, & the latter is seen in public servants chasing recalcitrant corporations for an extended grace period, followed by referrals to paying fines, & a convoluted redistribution mechanism because the consumers congregate in cities.

Before GST, we had two basic types of tax: income (direct & capital gains) & indirect (import, sales, excise). After GST, we got consumption, which is effectively direct, because, not only could we see it, as the consumer, but we could reclaim it under certain circumstances (especially tourists!).

At the time, I loved GST.

It's a matter of perspective. I was married. We both had high-paying jobs. We had no kids. We lived a quite frugal life. Thus, we invested in real estate & also benefited from low capital gains. An ideal world.

Now, I am married. We have a single income & one child still at home, & frugality seems to not be a watchword because one of us has time to do online shopping at home. We struggle - with a similar income.

Someone's going to say "that's your choice - having a family, not working, etc". No, that's a political view. Oddly, it seems to be the same party that wants to encourage family values - mum at home for the kids - & 100% employment with more places in childcare. I won't dwell on it.

The economics doesn't work. GST will always favour childless working couples, & no amount of family benefits & tax-time dependents will compensate for that. In addition, you have the full range of single-parent scenarios from the classic welfare cheat (someone who relies entirely on social services, so they must be a bludger) to the struggling working parent (who relies on childcare).

So, what does 'fair' tax look like? That depends on which side of the great political divide you sit on. One side would suggest that, in the best possible case, the family that shares one income should be taxed less (overall) because of the basic spreading of that income across more consumers (citizens, potentially voters). The other side suggests that every voter already has (or should have) an equal opportunity to make the life they wish to lead; thus, the only fair system taxes equally based on the (individual) income, & consumption (in terms of value) is commensurate with income.

Obviously, neither side is right. In fact, those two extremes would introduce such chaos into a social system that democracy would be at risk. Either the upper echelons would refuse to contribute, seeing it as supporting the ne'er-do-wells, or else the peasants would revolt in starvation. Historically, we have used a few levers to compensate larger families - & even encourage them - & encourage people who can afford to to spend on luxuries (with very limited success).

So, what does tax reform look like? It depends on who you are.

Those who are on welfare - the unemployed, pensioned, & those with a health status precluding them from working - don't pay taxes. They should essentially be allowed to live in dignity. How much dignity depends on your politics, but they should be excluded from any tax system. GST doesn't do this. Welfare already takes into account some levels of co-habitation (pensioners) & dependence (family benefits, carers' income).

Those who are living on annuities or investments & are entirely dependent on market vagaries should only be taxed by what they consume, because this is all that they control. Their consumption is set by them - the rate at which they would like to use their invested funds.

Those who are mega-wealthy (a very small percentage) simply don't pay taxes, on the basis that they can afford to hire people to make it impossible to prove that they should, so the taxing is done on those employees. Some have called this trickle-down. Consumption is fine for them, too.

That leaves everyone else, where income is based on goods & services provided. A fairer relationship between household income, dependents & household tax-rate needs to be calculated such that the nuclear family isn't even mentioned. If there's one income across two people or ten people, it doesn't matter what those relationships are.

However, it gets muddy when you have multi-generational co-habitants that mix pensions & income, because you just don't know whether all money goes into the household pot, or else is allocated in some other manner. This kind of trickiness is exactly why we never get tax reform.

Even the smallest of reforms seems unpopular. 

For example, a working parent - either single or second - needs childcare. This should be considered equivalent to a fringe benefit of working, & have a tax assessment commensurate with the household income. If the cost of childcare exceeds, say, 20% of the pre-tax (household) income, then that benefit (the price of the childcare) should be excluded from the household income (tax-free threshold) - not a fixed dollar value. This is unlikely to encourage people to pay more for childcare.

There, I finally found something tangible that could be done.