• Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Write for Australian Women Online
  • Advertise With Us
  • Horoscopes
  • Style
  • Shoe Boutique
  • eFashion
  • Weight Watchers Australia

Australian Women Online

Business, career, health and lifestyle content for women

  • Home
  • BLOG
  • BOOKS
  • BUSINESS
  • CAREER
  • COOKING
  • HEALTH
  • LIFESTYLE
    • Automotive
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Pets
    • Relationships
    • Your Home
    • Your Money
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • TRAVEL
    • Discount Holidays
You are here: Home / NEWS & POLITICS / Working mums bear the highest tax burdens

Working mums bear the highest tax burdens

5 June 2009 by Australian Women Online

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print
  • WhatsApp

Working mothers on middle and low incomes have been helping to fund a series of tax cuts for Australia’s highest income earners, according to new research by one of the world’s leading tax experts.

The research, by Patricia Apps, Professor of Public Economics at the University of Sydney Law School, found that a complex and interacting system of personal income tax and family benefits means second earners in average wage two-income families (usually women) are paying much higher marginal tax rates than high income earners (usually men).

“In the early 1980s Australia had a highly progressive, individual based income tax and families received support for dependent children in the form of universal family allowances,” says Professor Apps.

“The introduction of income tests for child support payments based on family income (now called Family Tax Benefit Part A), together with changes in the personal income tax scale, now means the highest marginal rates apply to average incomes and the incomes of second earners.”

“This new income tax system has shifted the overall burden of taxation towards two-income families on low and average wages and to working married mothers. If a father of a family with two young children is on $40,000 and the mother goes out to work and earns around $20,000, she can lose over 40 per cent of her income in taxes and lost benefits,” Professor Apps said.

Professor Apps also said Australia’s current tax policy has been driven by the same ideology that led to the collapse of the international finance markets: “The belief that high income earners and the capital they control are highly mobile has led to tax reform aimed at reducing taxes at high income levels and shifting the tax burden lower down the income distribution.”

For reasons of fairness and efficiency, and to reduce complexity and increase the transparency of tax reform, Professor Apps proposes a return to a strongly progressive individual based income tax system, and universal family payments for dependent children.

“A government seriously concerned to reduce complexity would begin with a revenue neutral reform that combined a more progressive personal income tax rate scale, universal family tax benefits, and the elimination of the Low Income Tax Offset and the Medicare Levy. The government could also focus on raising additional revenue by reducing opportunities for tax avoidance at upper income levels, in order to avoid high PIT rates,” said Professor Apps.

“Governments have argued that means testing certain benefits is important on equity and budgetary grounds, but a tax system that gives a transfer and then withdraws it at so many cents in the dollar is equivalent to (and unnecessarily more complex than) a system with a given universal payment and a particular structure of marginal tax rates. What matters is not the ‘universality’ of the payment, but the actual value of the payment and the structure of marginal tax rates that is adopted.”

The research is outlined in the recent paper, Tax reform, targeting and tax burden on women, prepared by Professor Apps for the National Foundation for Australian Women for submission to the Review of Australia’s Future Tax System.

For more information visit the NFAW website www.nfaw.org.au

Source: University of Sydney

You May Also Like:

Filed Under: NEWS & POLITICS, Uncategorized

Ads by Google
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

New Content

  • 8 Best Time Management Tools For Small Business Owners
  • 5 Ways Vikki Nicolai La Crosse WI Has Noticed That Australia Is Reducing Emissions
  • 6 Soothing Recipes To Get You Through Flu Season
  • 9 Easy Sustainable Swaps for a Zero Waste Home
  • How Much Should You Spend on Google Ads to Get an ROI?
  • How to Stay Cool and Productive in Hot Weather
  • How To Get the Best Range and Prices on Boots and Shoes in Australia?
  • Reasons You Should Avoid DIY Plumbing
  • 5 Reasons To Become A Medical Assistant
  • Which is better for skin, CBD oil or hemp oil?

Popular Content

  • Sexy and Stylish Short Hairstyles for Women Over 60
  • Moore Weekly Stars
  • 5 Ways Vikki Nicolai La Crosse WI Has Noticed That Australia Is Reducing Emissions
  • Top 9 Cars for Women in Australia
  • Aussie Mums open male escort agency catering exclusively to women
  • Advertise with Australian Women Online
  • Write for Australian Women Online
  • The 10 Best Side Dishes For Ribs
  • 8 Best Time Management Tools For Small Business Owners
  • CHARLES & KEITH Star Detail Turn-Lock Sling Bag

Australian Women Online © Copyright 2007 - 2022 Deborah Robinson ABN 38 119 171 979 · All Rights Reserved