Anidav posted:

Anidav posted:

JBP posted:

Policy that stops people making do nothing "investments" that leverage the public's money to draw an income or reduce their own responsibility to contribute owns and there should be more of it.

Birdstrike posted:

lmao can afford an investment property on 80k haha as if

Anidav posted:

bandaid.friend posted:

But it says here Labor is bad. Why do you hate Susan, Jane and James

bandaid.friend posted:

But it says here Labor is bad. Why do you hate Susan, Jane and James

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Greeks are white now?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Susan, Jane and James can blow me.

Birdstrike posted:

lmao can afford an investment property on 80k haha as if

Doctor Spaceman posted:

If I was Labor I'd make sure I had a good answer for Susan's case study because it's the one I can see generating actual sympathy.

quote:

Vikki Campion travel records Freedom of Information request denied


A Freedom Of Information request for the travel expenses of Barnaby Joyce’s former staffer and current partner has been denied on the grounds it would undermined an independent investigation, and the “expectation and risk” of the information being “misinterpreted and misrepresented”.

More than four weeks ago, The Leader lodged an FOI request seeking Vikki Campion’s travel records for the first quarter of 2017, to investigate whether public funds were misused while she worked for Mr Joyce, who she is now in a relationship with.

In the response from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority – the body in charge of monitoring parliamentary travel expenses – branch manager Petra Gartmann wrote she was “of the view” that disclosing the documents would be “widely published” and would “generate public discussion, including on social media”.

Ms Gartmann said the benefit of informing public debate was outweighed by the documents’ potential to compromise the organisation’s audit.

“[Releasing the documents] could reasonably raise public expectations that this audit will lead to certain findings,” Ms Gartmann wrote.

“This then has the potential to lead to public and political pressure, undermine IPEA's independence and ultimately render the audit worthless if the findings fail to meet public expectations.

“Also, in order to afford audit subjects procedural fairness, any adverse findings and gaps in available information are required to be put to the audit subject before information is published.”

The Leader also sent an FOI request to Mr Joyce’s office, asking for his diary of event and meeting locations for the first three months of 2017.

However, his office is yet to respond.

Anidav posted:

Konomex posted:

So, what I take from this are Labor are competent financial managers who will fix the budget deficit and remove the systematic deficiencies introduced under the Howard government. Also, they're finally found some competent political minds who have realised the decaying 'Howards Battlers' were never going to vote for them, so they make a good punching bag.

LIVE AMMO ROLEPLAY posted:

They’re probably expecting this year’s super flu to wipe out a ton of ‘em this year.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

I know the substance of the answer is "just draw down on it", and I don't disagree with it (or the policy). That's not my point.

She's on 32k a year and the average super balance for 70 year old women is 110k. It's really easy to present her as an average battler being slugged with a tax hit despite doing everything right, especially when you do simple poo poo like mix up mean and median like I just did.

Coucho Marx posted:

Someone upthread suggested a low cash-back cap, of something like 2-3k, which would probably solve that problem? Maybe means test it too, so that from say 50k to 80k income that cash back drops to zero.

edit: and/or an asset test

Doctor Spaceman posted:

I know the substance of the answer is "just draw down on it", and I don't disagree with it (or the policy). That's not my point.

She's on 32k a year and the average super balance for 70 year old women is 110k. It's really easy to present her as an average battler being slugged with a tax hit despite doing everything right, especially when you do simple poo poo like mix up mean and median like I just did.

quote:

A group of protesters has gathered outside Channel Seven's Sydney studio this morning where the show Sunrise is broadcast live to protest comments made by an all-white panel on the breakfast show earlier this week.

Particular offence was taken by many after one panellist with no experience in child welfare or Indigenous affairs claimed the First Stolen generations were justified because children were being abused by Indigenous parents and that we needed a second one.

A group of protesters yelled out shame and booed the studio through the large glass windows that expose the Sunrise set to the surrounding foot traffic of Martin Place in the Sydney CBD.

Speakers, who included members of the Stolen Generations, shared stories and others shouted "Leave the kids alone" or held up signs saying "Hands off our children".

Sunrise appeared to run images of previously shot video of Martin Place behind their presenters today and closed the studio's soundproof blinds in an attempt to hide the fact the protest was happening.

Fairfax posted:

There is no way Peter Eklund could be described as a blue-blooded toff who exploits a “loophole” in the tax system to rip off Australian battlers. But that is what Bill Shorten would have you believe about this man and others who will pay for Labor’s new $59 billion revenue grab.
Eklund trained as an electrician and worked at a coal mine until he was made redundant when he was 55. He took casual jobs for four years but found the options ran out around his home town of Rockhampton.

Now, at age 61, he is a self-funded retiree who has to live on his savings. He and his wife, after raising three children, rely on their bank deposits and shares to get by. Their incomes are less than $18,200 each, which means they are below the tax-free threshold.
This is not a picture of a couple of carefree retirees who splash their government cash on trips to a Pacific island. Yes, Eklund has about $110,000 in shares, mostly Telstra and NAB. Yes, the dividends are an important income. And, yes, they get a cash refund from the Australian Tax Office every year under the dividend imputation rules that have been in place for almost two decades.
The cash refund is worth about $2,500. There is no spare change for a holiday after Eklund pays for private health insurance, which he is probably going to have to cancel soon.
“I find it a little bit galling that the rhetoric is all about the rich,” he says. “I’m not poor but we live a modest lifestyle.”
A little bit galling? You can see that Eklund talks in understatements. He believes Labor’s policy is fine in principle but troubling in practice. And he is frustrated at the way he is being labelled by Shorten and other Labor politicians with their waffle and exaggeration.

To press the point: this man lives in a three-bedroom HardiePlank home and has no luxuries other than a tinny for getting out on the water. And he tends to vote Green.

Shorten has been blundering like an elephant around people like Eklund. To listen to the Opposition Leader, you would think the Labor policy only hurts the “lucky few” who are using an “unfair” loophole.

The trouble for Labor is that those who bear the burden of a tax change can and will be heard. Fairfax readers are writing in to make sure of it.

Consider the case of Ann, a retired nurse from regional NSW. She earns less than $18,200 and gets the standard tax exemption that is available to everyone on a low income. She has shares worth roughly $17,000 and receives about $700 a year in dividends – not exactly a bumper return.

The cash rebate on the franked dividends is small but it helps with the council rates. This is not a handout but a tax refund that has been a standard feature of tax law since 2000. Her message to Shorten: “Keep your hands off my money.”

There are serious problems with the Labor policy because those on lower incomes rely most on the cash refund that Labor wants to cancel. One financial adviser, Daniel Simmons, calculates that someone with $150,000 in shares and no other income except dividends would lose a cash refund worth $3,000 a year.

Simmons estimates that someone with the same shares, but an additional property portfolio in two super funds worth $3.2 million, would get a deduction from the franking credits on the shares but see no change to his or her final tax position. In other words, wealthier retirees may not have to worry one bit.

All these cases are very different. That is exactly the point. Labor cannot be sure what trouble it has unleashed on ordinary retirees.

Consider the example of a couple who sell their house to move to a retirement village, giving them leftover cash for investments that can supplement the pension. Remember, politicians from both sides have been praising this sort of “downsizing” as a way to help with the housing shortage.

With a $300,000 share portfolio, this couple qualifies for a cash refund of about $2,500. Yet their income is modest and now Labor takes some of it away. They feel punished by Shorten for moving.

It is easy to dismiss real people when dealing with tax policy in abstract. This happens every minute on Twitter, where Labor barackers love the idea of this new policy. “Hit the rich – they don’t vote Labor anyway,” is the theme.

Talk to the actual people who stand to lose and things look very different.

Labor took days to confirm some of the real impact of its policy despite long preparation for its announcement. Only on Tuesday night did it concede it would hit 200,000 people who get a partial Age Pension. Only on Wednesday did it admit it would hit 400,000 self-funded retirees as well.

On Tuesday night, Labor treasury spokesman Chris Bowen dodged questions on ABC TV about the average income of those who will lose cash refunds. Why are these questions too hard?

This is a courageous policy in some ways, a sign that Shorten and Bowen are preparing to run a government that makes hard decisions. It is up to them to explain who will bear the brunt of the changes. They will rightly be under pressure to find ways to spare those who can least afford this new pain.

Labor partisans might wave away questions about who these people are and how “rich” they might be, but nobody else should.

David Crowe is chief political correspondent.

BBJoey posted:

is it weird to think that if you don’t pay any tax you shouldn’t get any tax returns? because like i feel that’s a fairly reasonable starting point for tax reform

LIVE AMMO ROLEPLAY posted:

They’re probably expecting this year’s super flu to wipe out a ton of ‘em this year.

The Before Times posted:

no you see, these people have WORKED HARD all their lives to contribute to the economy and they've ALREADY PAID THEIR FAIR SHARE of taxes because taxes are like a bank account that you cash in at retirement yeah?

GoldStandardConure posted:

the government should give me everything!

i shouldn't have to pay taxes!

quote:

On 1 July 2012, the tax-free threshold was raised from $6000 to $18200.