26 replies to this topic

[Big_Valven]

Luke352, on 07 June 2011 - 09:37 AM, said:

I just don't get this viewpoint that because someone earns more they owe more, and there opinion is worth less.

p.s. I don't earn over a 150k not even over 100k so i'm not just defending my personal position.

So true! Not personally against Gozza, but I really do think government and society have become so PC that we're unable to actually do what is truly best for this country and its people anymore... I could end up on a darwinistic rant here so I'll leave it at that.
Worthy to note that I am not a high income earner either.

Gozza, on 07 June 2011 - 10:42 AM, said:

What higher income earner pays the correct tax rate on their income anyway? I guarantee you that 90%+ of people that are in the top taxable income bracket have accountants which are very good as reducing tax paid by that person

High income earners do pay correct taxes, not paying correctly would be illegal. They however can justify the facilities to ensure that they are paying tax as wisely as possible and working with our taxation system.
Acting like it's some sleight-of-hand trick and they end up paying some marginal amount of tax is a bit naive. High income earners still end up paying more tax proportionately than low income earners.

Anyone would think earning money for yourself was going out of fashion...

[Teej]

I paid $1.609 for BP Ultimate 98 on my way back from Coolangatta today, cost $94 odd dollars to fill my Euro. If you go on to my Fuelly (http://www.fuelly.co...ver/tneilen/tsx) you can see a trend in the prices rising in the past 2-ish years!

[Gozza]

I think it is naive to beleive that a CEO earning $5 million an year pays half of that back in tax (what is supposed to happen with out tax system on income). Not saying I agree with paying 50% of your income in tax however.

[Luke352]

Gozza, on 07 June 2011 - 05:41 PM, said:

I think it is naive to beleive that a CEO earning $5 million an year pays half of that back in tax (what is supposed to happen with out tax system on income). Not saying I agree with paying 50% of your income in tax however.

I'm not however he is most likely still paying 10-100x more than the average tax payer.

[Gozza]

And you see that as a problem?

I would guess that most CEO's of large company's were born and raised in affluent families who could afford tuitions fees and private schooling etc.

Whereas many of the lower income earners of Australia would be from poorer families or migrants, so in many cases they would have had to sacrifice their learning and leave school in year 10 and not go to university so they can help support their family.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? In Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, he quotes a large percentage figure (sorry, it's been a whole since reading so I don't know the exact number) that represents the percentage of a person's life determined before they are born. i.e. A huge proportion of your life has already been determined by your parents, the country you are born in etc.

So my point is, we need to make it fair for every HUMAN being. We are all the same. It's surely not fair that someone born in a poor family dies in a poor family, that's where we differentiate from places like India where they have a strict social class system. Australia doesn't have this social class system to the extent they do, and this is due to redistribution of income and the freedom to move between income groups.

I do agree that there is an extreme though, where it doesn't become worth it to get an education and work your arse off to be a doctor etc only to earn 5k a year than a bricky, and that's why communism can't work if it strictly follows the rules of communism (unlike China does) as there is no incentive to become educated!

It just annoys me whe I hear people complain about paying taxes. Think about it!! What would Australia be without taxes??? Think of the countries ghat don't have taxes? I'm pretty sure I would rather love here where there is very little corruption, we have infrastructure, free public health care, free education. Who would pay for this if there were no taxation? I know no-one would elect to contribute because humans (as animals) are self-preservationists. We will do anything we can to ensure our own survival and the surviv of our offspring, no matter what the cost is to the greater society.

Just thing about a world without taxation for a second...
And you will be thinking of a terrible scene that looks straight from Zimbabwe and Congo etc but you will be the star of the show.

[hsvmonarogen3]

trick with high income earners is they own companies which pay 30% tax. 70% in pocket. why wouldnt you do that. beats paying 47.5% (which sucks ass!!!!)

[Luke352]

Gozza, on 08 June 2011 - 10:19 AM, said:

And you see that as a problem?

I would guess that most CEO's of large company's were born and raised in affluent families who could afford tuitions fees and private schooling etc.

Probably maybe but it's not the rule.

Whereas many of the lower income earners of Australia would be from poorer families or migrants, so in many cases they would have had to sacrifice their learning and leave school in year 10 and not go to university so they can help support their family.

Though I won't deny this probably happens I don't think it's as common these days as it has been in the past.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? In Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, he quotes a large percentage figure (sorry, it's been a whole since reading so I don't know the exact number) that represents the percentage of a person's life determined before they are born. i.e. A huge proportion of your life has already been determined by your parents, the country you are born in etc.

That's life some of us get born here or there, life isn't fair and people who think we need to try and make it so need a reality check. But at the same time there are many people who have come from poverty to be very succesful.

So my point is, we need to make it fair for every HUMAN being. We are all the same. It's surely not fair that someone born in a poor family dies in a poor family, that's where we differentiate from places like India where they have a strict social class system. Australia doesn't have this social class system to the extent they do, and this is due to redistribution of income and the freedom to move between income groups.

Why? It will never be fair for everyone no matter how hard we try the Planet will still have disease, poverty, famine. Losing a child at a young age, being abused thorugh childhood or as an adult and so on isn't fair but it will still happen because we are HUMAN we aren't perfect and never can be.

I do agree that there is an extreme though, where it doesn't become worth it to get an education and work your arse off to be a doctor etc only to earn 5k a year than a bricky, and that's why communism can't work if it strictly follows the rules of communism (unlike China does) as there is no incentive to become educated!

It just annoys me whe I hear people complain about paying taxes. Think about it!! What would Australia be without taxes??? Think of the countries ghat don't have taxes? I'm pretty sure I would rather love here where there is very little corruption, we have infrastructure, free public health care, free education. Who would pay for this if there were no taxation? I know no-one would elect to contribute because humans (as animals) are self-preservationists. We will do anything we can to ensure our own survival and the surviv of our offspring, no matter what the cost is to the greater society.

I'm not complaining about taxes we all should pay them but I get annoyed by people who bitch about some rich guy who earns say 5mil who if he claims nothing back should pay about 2.4mil in taxes but then puts in his claims and tax reduction stratedgy only ends up paying 1mil. What is there to complain about he is still paying 100x the average income earner after they put in there claims etc.. People need to stop worrying about what others earn/pay and concentrate on improving their own position.

Just thing about a world without taxation for a second...
And you will be thinking of a terrible scene that looks straight from Zimbabwe and Congo etc but you will be the star of the show.

No my point was that what right do people have to be complaining about someone taking steps to reduce the tax the pay when even after these steps they are still paying a huge amount in comparison. See I'm reading your post and all I think is that your posts come across as someone who has a chip on his shoulder about people who earn alot. Do I feel that some of these CEO's should be paid the astronomical figures they are, no I think what some of them get paid is rediculous but that is what the business society has deemed them worth.

[Gozza]

Good points, I do know it's a fantastiscal unachievable world where people love and care for each other like family, but the least we can do is try to make a difference to lessen the gap?

I also don't think it's right to pay 2.4mil out of a 5mil income! I think income tax should be less, and the taxes should be re-distributed to other things like consumption goods (especially environmentally degredational ones!)

This way, rich people can keep their money inna bank and look at it, or they can piss it up against the wall and the government would still get an income at least the rich people have a choice then.

And no, this is not coming from someone with a chip on their shoulder about high income earners I'm completing my economics degree, so I would say it's fairly likely that I will join the higher income brackets within a couple of years - but I won't be complaining about it. Instead, I'll be working towards re-arranging our tax system to be more streamlined and less tempting to circumnavigate

[yahoo]

To the OP, fuel costs less here, but we get ripped off badly with our car prices, expecially the so called luxury car prices. I would rather pay 1.50 GBP/litre of fuel and 67k GBP for a porsche carrera, than over 200k for a carrera with cheaper fuel. You will cry when you see the car prices here. Fuel prices should be the least of your concern.

To those who think rich people should pay more taxes, don't forget, apart from a high marginal tax rate, they also pay taxes everytime they spend. I just checked the stamp duty for a 5 million dollar house in Victoria, not that I am planning to buy one! It comes to over 276k, enough for someone to buy half a house!

Edited by yahoo, 08 June 2011 - 11:18 PM.

[Gozza]

Registration isn't stricly more expensive per year over here for gas guzzling cars though, whereas in European countries I think you pay a fair bit extra a year to keep your V8 on the road

When I visited Holland, my relative was telling me how his Prius is free to keep on the road because of it's low emissions whereas a 4wd is up to 3k a year or something crazy!

You will crap your pants if you think 200k for a Porsche is expensive when you hear the price in singapore, try 3-4 times that! On top of that, prices to keep your car on the road increase dramatically after 5 years so you most people sell their cars to company's who sell them to poorer countries. Anyone's who's been to Singapore will know that you only ever see new cars and no 4wd's my uncle has the first proper 4wd he's seen in Singpore (lived there for 6 years or so). He says they are all pretty intimidated by it on the road which is always a bonus

[yahoo]

Gozza, on 08 June 2011 - 11:19 PM, said:

You will crap your pants if you think 200k for a Porsche is expensive when you hear the price in singapore, try 3-4 times that! On top of that, prices to keep your car on the road increase dramatically after 5 years so you most people sell their cars to company's who sell them to poorer countries. Anyone's who's been to Singapore will know that you only ever see new cars and no 4wd's my uncle has the first proper 4wd he's seen in Singpore (lived there for 6 years or so). He says they are all pretty intimidated by it on the road which is always a bonus

I just came back from spending a few days in Singapore. For common cars, yes, car prices are about 3x of the prices here. For Posches carrera, it is around 400k Oz dollar there, so a bit less than 2x the price here. On the upside, the top marginal tax rate is 20%, comes in at 320k. So, by my calculation, if you make 1 million a year, and wants to buy a posche every year, you are better off doing it in singapore. On top of that, you have really cheap public transport, cheap taxi fare. Downside? you are cramped like sardines, and alcohol is expensive! I know a few people who have moved there to work, as they get paid more and taxed less. It is a different society, which values professionals and education more more tham we do here.

http://www.iras.gov....04.aspx?id=1190. I wanted to cry when I see their tax rates. Wish our government wouldn't piss away our money like they do.

Edited by yahoo, 08 June 2011 - 11:54 PM.

[Captain Kermit]

Gozza, on 07 June 2011 - 10:42 AM, said:

I will also guarantee you that for every tax bracket below that top bracket, the percentage of people that use accountants diminishes at an increasing rate because the amount they can save decreases with every decrease in yearly income, until it would reach an equilibrium level where the cost of the accountant = the savings they create, making the process pointless.

Didn't read past this point, but when I was at KFC earning $35,000 a year an accountant was well worth it. He got every cent of tax I paid back, something I could never have done on my own. The cost vs. return works well at that point, and I was in a crapty service job. Now I have a decent job an accountant is even more valuable, and I can't imagine why anybody who works full time wouldn't use one.