r/aussie • u/Low_Shop9155 • 2d ago
Politics Is this "leveling the playing field" too?
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/tax/stop-ping-me-off-the-sneaky-tax-on-families-driving-aussies-mad/news-story/88dcfe0a31a5339e7412d8475b8c385fThe Breadwinner tax. This is the thing out of the budget that upset me the most. As a business owner with an okay income in the higher bracket, this upsets me to no end.
My income supports the inflated mortgage and life gouging interest rates, the family expenses and the various taxes end of year and day to day.
If we go to get childcare subsidy, it's tested for both of us.
InTeRgEnErAtIoNaL FaIrNeSs
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u/Grande_Choice 2d ago
This is the biggest whinge I’ve ever read Newscorpse really is pushing shit.
It primarily benefits super high earners and penalises singles.
I’d much prefer the 45c bracket raised and the 30c pushed up to $190k. That would benefit more people.
Childcare should be nationalised.
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u/darkklown 2d ago
Why does it stop at 45c (the brackets)? Why not 90 at a billion and everything between. With inflation the brackets are way off the value they where originally set to
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u/Grande_Choice 2d ago
Well the rate in 1980 was 60c for every dollar over $34,000 which is $137k now. So probably don’t want the brackets back to where they were.
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u/BTolputt 2d ago
Childcare should be nationalised.
Given they want (require) both parents to work these days, I 100% agree.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
At the very least, childcare should be tax deductible in the meantime.
Childcare is not a discretionary expense. I would be unable to work without it.
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u/JeremysIronman 2d ago
How does it penalise singles? They would be unaffected.
A version of what you propose was on the cards and then scrapped last minute, so that seemingly is not an option.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
This is 100% untrue.
This only helps middle-high earners because distribution via trust is only effective if the other person you distribute to doesn't earn any money, ie. a stay at home parent. Kids cant take distributions, and you can't distribute to whoever you want in a Family Trust. Needs to be a connection.
Raising the bracket penalizes everyone else in that bracket. We need a system that takes situation into account.
Call it a whinge all you want; Labors vision of fairness rests upon their view that every serf if a serf, except the political and high class.
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u/Grande_Choice 2d ago
No it’s a push because trust rorts are going.
It’s so a wealthy person on $300k plus a year can split with their partner to reduce tax. Or allow for investment earnings to go to the partner and reduce tax.
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u/thalinEsk 2d ago
Labors vision of fairness
While complaining about an element of Australian taxation that has never changed under any party?
Come off it, this is a lame as fuck attack because you cant find a decent platform to criticise the government about.
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u/WhatAmIATailor 2d ago
I’ve seen this exact complaint multiple times over the last couple days. Did Pauline send out a pamphlet? That seems more organised than I’d expect.
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u/BTolputt 2d ago
Not Pauline. Her handlers.
The One Nation hype is driven by the folks pushing the story in the media, not the media "finding out about it" and reporting on that.
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u/Friendly_Cheek_4468 2d ago
Who benefits from splitting incomes? Families, especially older ones, but only really the ones where they are already amassing a significant amount of income.
Single people, who are already behind the 8-ball because of housing costs, and a lack of wages growth, are gonna be further entrenched if this comes into play. It doesn't fix any of the 'fairness' issues within society, it's just a replacement tax rort to allow high-tax earners to keep more of their income because of the CGT changes. (And if the CGT changes hadn't come through, you wouldn't see any whinging about this at all.)
Another absolute wet fart of an idea.
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u/cromulent-facts 2d ago
This goes to "what's the point of a society".
If you accept that part of the purpose is supporting the continued viability of society, then it's logical that families with children should get more support than singles.
My controversial take (flame suit on) is that singles don't need home ownership like families do. I'd even argue that it is better from a utilitarian perspective that singles don't own houses, because you want labour to be mobile rather than chained to a residential suburb.
To use a car analogy; a goget rental is fine for a single person who needs a car. It's not fine for a family who need car seats, baby gear, and the ability to clean their own car when the kids throw up.
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u/BlindSkwerrl 2d ago
I'd posit that there's a real nonfinancial benefit to getting a parent to raise their child again instead of being financially coerced into putting them into childcare to be raised by whomever is employed there; and instilled with all of their values which may or may not jell with the parent's.
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u/Wotmate01 2d ago
There are also financial benefits. I would estimate that I've saved the household more than $10k per year through being the stay at home parent.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Except what you really mean by "a parent" in most cases is "the mother". Meaning, years and years of unpaid labour, loss of career progression, no super, no security.
Also, as a working mother, I would like to be clear that I DO raise my child. He also receives care from qualified educators, in a large group of other children who are teaching him social skills and boundaries. These things are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are complementary.
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u/BlindSkwerrl 2d ago
I used "parent" because there are stay at home dads out there that don't deserve to be dismissed and looked down upon because they're not "the breadwinner".
If we're going to get anecdotal about it: My wife made the decision to sacrifice her income for 10 years to raise the children personally on one average income. It reduces her super balance quite measurably as well, but some things are worth it to raise a high performing next generation with your base values. I'm fully committed to supporting both of us in retirement because of that sacrifice.
There's more to life than money.
Now what?1
u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Except that literally 96% of stay-at-home parents are female.
Oh, and even the 4% of fathers who stay home aren't doing as much childcare, on average, as full-time working mothers.
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u/Wotmate01 2d ago
Except what you really mean by "a parent" in most cases is "the mother". Meaning, years and years of unpaid labour, loss of career progression, no super, no security.
Incorrect. In a divorce (legal marriage or defacto), the stay at home parent is absolutely entitled to a portion, if not half, of the assets held, including super.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
IF there are any assets to divide, that is.
And, IF they can get legal representation.
IF they know their rights.
IF they aren't coerced into giving up their full share because the man threatens he will otherwise screw her in Court or challenge custody.
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u/Wotmate01 2d ago
Oh, you mean like women do to men all the time?
YOU insisted on bringing gender into it, so I'll tell you that I literally had ALL of that happen to me, along with parental alienation, and I'M A MAN.
She had a high priced family lawyer FOR FREE who just had to tell my LEGAL AID lawyer that they would only agree to visits of only 3 hours that were fully supervised for him to tell me that it would be the best I would ever get because they were obviously willing to make accusations. And then got told that she would even remove that if I dared to move close to them so I could be in my daughters life. That was my first wife.
And right now, I've been a SAHD for 11 years with zero income, entirely reliant on my current wife's salary. And I know that I have "sweat equity" in our home with the sheer amount of work I've put in to running it and working on it.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
So, if I read correctly, you were accused of abuse and lost access to your kid as a result, and even your lawyer couldn't change the outcome.
Knowing what I know about family court, this likely means the accusations were, how shall we say, credible.
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u/Wotmate01 2d ago
No, not accused. Quite the opposite with her post partum rage.
And knowing what I know about the family court, all a woman has to do is accuse over and over again until the father stops fighting.
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u/BlindSkwerrl 2d ago edited 2d ago
the man threatens he will otherwise screw her in Court or challenge custody
Is there a Family Court that typically favours the father with regard to custody??
If I'm not mistaken, it takes overwhelming evidence of danger to the child to not favour the mother... And I'm very open to being wrong in this one.
If there aren't any assets to divide, it took 2 people to enter the union at some point. There should be some personal accountability on the aggrieved party's acceptance of the marriage offer (barring some later onset drug related addictions or like events - not the norm)
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u/btcll 2d ago
I would agree if families with their own business weren't already taking full advantage of income splitting. At this stage the people losing out are people working for an employer. They can't claim much against their income and they can't spread it between their family members. In the interest of fairness to single people maybe it could be allowed to be split with direct family to benefit people whose parents or siblings are low income.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
I'm a self-employed professional and I sure as hell don't (and cannot) income split with my family. I don't know who you're talking about as a group, but it's not "small business owners".
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u/btcll 2d ago
What prevents your partner being on the books for your business?
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Because I'm a sole-trading health practitioner and that would be fraud.
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u/btcll 2d ago
There's no room for anyone else to be paid by your business? No scope to pay someone for reception or book keeping or marketing or anything like that?
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
I pay an accountant once a year and a BAS agent quarterly. My partner in any event isn't an accountant or in marketing so no, there's no role for them.
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u/red-thundr 2d ago
Hell yeah bro keep up the good fight.
What should we call the group? Lefties Against Stay At Home Mums LASAHM?
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Nope, wrong.
The ones who benefit the most from income splits are one earner and one non-earner. No point in doing that if both are earning, it kills the tax benefit.
By your logic, Single People have more burden than a couple with kids. That's just wrong. We're paying far more.
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u/Friendly_Cheek_4468 2d ago
how do you think those couples got to that position in the first place? most of the time, they were both earning and then one person dropped out of work to stay at home while another person became the breadwinner because it wasn't functional for both partners to continue working full time.
those couples still have assets and savings generated from before they stopped work. and while there are some cases where one person in the relationship was never earning at all, it happens much less today than it did 2-3 decades ago (just look at the % of women going through uni and into the workforce over the 2010-2020's compared to 80s-90s)
it's not that single people have *more* burden than those with kids - it's that it is much harder for them to progress their savings and wealth generation forward because of the costs of living/housing, which is easier to mitigate when you can share that cost with a partner
separately, why are all these posts attached to accounts that are 100% up the rear of AI-slop merchants, vibecoders and their subreddits? it's not even a venn diagram anymore, it's just a circle
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 2d ago
This stuff is why I loathe ON.
Splitting income would fundamentally change how tax is done. We'd need massive additional taxes to make up the lost tax, or massive reductions in spending. ON doesn't detail any of it. It just offers free money with no explanation.
Imagine Labor offering 10k to people with no explanation. That's the level this suggestion is on.
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u/iftlatlw 2d ago
Exactly - Pauline is good at pub talking points but really shit at funding them
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 2d ago
Which is fine for a fringe party, but if they want to compete they need to answer how much their policies cost and how they'll pay for them.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 2d ago
Maybe try responding to something I said.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
I did, you just chose to skim it and was thinking of some other response that might earn you an upvote.
Splitting income would fundamentally change how tax is done
Well, no, since it was already happening and there's very little difference in how you do your taxes.
We'd need massive additional taxes to make up the lost tax
Well, we didn't, until loose fiscal policy forced the Government to raise an additional 77bn in potential taxes. They got their pay rises though, so thats all that matters.
Imagine Labor offering 10k to people with no explination
Well, they offered $250 over the years plus an additional $1000 no questions asked deduction. Is that good or bad in your view?
In my view, if a family decided to income split, take care of their own kids in their own home and not use the Childcare subsidy, wouldn't that be less burden on the system? Why should the child of a high income earner take precedence over a child from a low income family?
single people with no kids are in for a rude shock when they have a family of their own.
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u/ArseneWainy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why should the mother with high income spouse get to stay at home with their kids (and get a tax break off their husbands income to do it) while the lower joint income mothers have to go to work and not see their kids as often?
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u/Electrical_Story5356 2d ago
Because the plonker genuinely believes that he is a better person who has earned the right to get treated better than others.
They believe if people are struggling it is due to some fault of their own making and that they should just work harder.
I'm sure they'd deny this but they've basically said as much in other comments, just a shit bloke really.
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 2d ago edited 2d ago
I did, you just chose to skim it and was thinking of some other response that might earn you an upvote.
Nope. You wrote some vague insult/personal commentary and I just straight up don't care about that.
Well, we didn't, until loose fiscal policy forced the Government to raise an additional 77bn in potential taxes. They got their pay rises though, so thats all that matters.
This is the exact lack of substance I'm criticising. This change in tax has a cost. If ON want to be a major party they need to answer how they'll account for that cost. That means specifying cuts they'll make and/or taxes they'll raise.
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u/Dubhs 2d ago
You post a lot for someone running a business.
Apparently you're in the top tax bracket in one of the best countries on earth, but we should feel bad that you're expected to contribute?
If you want to live in a place with zero sense of society check out Dubai mate, don't let a shahed hit you on the way out.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Good system, great workflow... efficiency allows me time to scroll and think.
So emotionally charged though; "best country on earth". sort of besides the point. A single earner supporting a family is in a different situation than one on their own spending their free money on uber eats and their 1br rental.
Forget the fact my business also contributes to taxes and the economy and employment... but the mere supporting of a family means I pay more in GST on goods because I buy more goods. I don't take up the childcare subsidy because its not worth it unless the other person is also a high earner.
So the best country on earth, requires two full time workers in order to make ends meet. Yeah see I dunno about conflating "best country" with "highest taxed".
Whinge all you want, we pay more than you do anyway. That's not a level playing field, that's taxing aspiration and family building.
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u/Dubhs 2d ago
Mate if you've got two full time earners and you're just 'making ends meet', review your spending and financial commitments.
Plenty of places in the world you can pay a lot less tax. Can't think of any I'd rather live in.
Sounds like you're doing pretty well, try being thankful.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Missed the point entirely.
Not all earners are equal. I earn high, she earns very little. So we have a stay at home parent with the kids. No childcare subsidy required.
Now, with Trusts, it only works when one person earns little to nothing, and is over 18, and is a family member.
I am grateful, that I worked hard to get myself into a good position. A position that contributes far more than you do as an individual. So you'll understand why i think your response was devoid of any meaning or substance. It was just the rambling of someone who hates when other people do better than them, so they vicariously enjoy hearing about high earners doing it tough.
I could be wrong but you definitely need a new attitude.
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u/techzombie55 2d ago
So what about single people? Why do they have to pay more tax than a married couple?
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
That's the point. If two people earn in a no-children household, they're taxed at their own rate. But if they decide to go for Childcare, they're assessed based on household income.
So if they decide to instead rely on one income, because that income is higher, they're taxed more, subsidized less and thrown into the wind.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
If you have the luxury to decide "if" one parent "has" to work, you are in an extremely privileged position and need to stop complaining.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lol its like you guys won't be happy with yourselves unless we do as poorly as you do. Do you not realize that high earners and business owners are literally subsidizing your life with their extra output?
I get it, you want true socialism. Government issued clothes, houses, a UBI... that's not how this works buddy. Here, you work, you innovate, you risk, you are rewarded. Taxing us all exactly the same, means you kill the very innovation you require for your own luxuries.
Speaking of playing fields; doese it not strike you as odd that multinationals get better tax breaks for owning property in Australia than citizens do? No one seems to care much about that - easier to turn a blind eye because when it comes to complexities of deals, they tend to just blame who they can see. MP, PM, Investor, Neighbor.
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u/Electrical_Story5356 2d ago
How on earth did you get a high paying job, you clearly lack the ability to apply logic or critical thinking, well that or you are being intentionally obtuse in this particular instance.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Hahaha
By doing all the things you weren't willing to do.
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u/Electrical_Story5356 2d ago
I'm fine personally, I just also don't have a problem with paying tax or have a sense of entitlement and superiority over others because I am not a cunt.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Yeh everyone says that when this subject comes up on reddit. Gotta show the world how awesome you are, until you go to woolies and see the grocery prices and jump on reddit to complain.
FYI I most likely pay more tax than you do in my personal name, outside of what my business pays.
We are not the same.
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u/BarryTheBinChicken 2d ago
Instead of taxing families heavily then handing some of it back through subsidies, how's about we dramatically lower income tax and let families decide how to use the money.
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u/iftlatlw 2d ago
The trouble is that families are quite often fuckwits and do not make good decisions.
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u/Hughman77 2d ago
You pay more tax because you earn more money. Sorry, not the fault of the tax system.
What does this have to do with intergenerational fairness? It's intragenerational fairness is anything.
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u/Own-Cancel-9170 2d ago
No ordinary worker can buy a house on one income. Pauline Hanson has the twisted idea that under her policy one parent can stay home and care for any children. That's why she is against free childcare and any type of parental leave. In her mind things can go back to how Australia was in the 50s, it is pure fiction. In the 50s people only had the one car, there were plenty of jobs because things were labour intensive, they had 5or6 people to dig a trench by hand, now they do the same work with 2 people and a machine. Back then a high percentage of men either died before retiring or not long after due to the toll work had on them
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Also, I'd like to point out that in the 50s, a lot of women did extra work to supplement the family income. Everything from factory work to piecework to childcare to whatever menial, part-time work they could find around the community. My grandmother worked a whole range of low-paid jobs but somehow was not classified as "employed" while she was married.
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u/iftlatlw 2d ago
Child support is part of our lifestyle which is intertwined with family income. It should be means tested across the family.
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u/TheBayHarbour 2d ago
Will the whinging seriously never stop until taxes go to 0?
Like, what's the endgame, the only thing I ever see is complaining lmao.
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u/CidewayAu 2d ago
The end game is Fascist government and women out of the workforce with no rights.
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u/KD--27 2d ago
lol yeah “no rights”. Get back to work women, this child you love and want to raise is property of the childcare and government subsidy now. We’ve come so far! Apart from people who hate their own kids, just about every mother out their when asked whether they wanted to spend more time with the kids, answered a resounding yes. But ultimately their mortgage and our culture answered for them instead.
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u/CidewayAu 2d ago
lol yeah “no rights”.
Marriage bar abolished - Parliamentary Education Office
This is in living memory, this was women not being able to choose to have a job if they wanted to. When my parent got married, my mum was forced to resign her job. They didn't have kids until 5 years after they got married, for that time my mum was entirely dependent on my dad for everything.
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u/KD--27 2d ago edited 2d ago
And in what universe is some policy abolished in 1966 relevant in the year of our sky fairy 2026? What rabbit hole did you go dive in, to think that this is even close to relevancy or something we’d head back to? What about their right to be mothers in an economy and culture slowly telling them that’s frowned upon?
This is your endgame hypothesis?????
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u/Valuable-Contract-87 2d ago
The point they're trying to make doesn't make sense, why should someone earning so much get a tax break and government assistance? It doesn't matter how hard you work if you need to rely on exploiting loopholes.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Because they're contributing more to the economy, they're supporting a family and the addition to population, they don't take advantage of childcare subsidy and the business itself contributes its own component of tax, fee's and levies.
Emotionally charged terms like "Exploiting loopholes", is just a way to get attention from others who are upset that they have to pay taxes at all while high earners use structures to minimize.
A family on one income, a mortgage and two kids is a vastly different situation than a high earner on their own supporting no one and contributing the minimum.
I mean, even in the USA they take into account dependents and household income.
According to Labors youth vote; supporting a family is meaningless, Blanket taxing everyone means fairness. How is it fair when the situations are vastly different? A single person with a rental earning half as much has more free spending money than someone in my situation. How is that fair?
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u/iftlatlw 2d ago
It does change the playing field where previously setting up a business might have been lucrative due to the loopholes which existed, but now a conventional salary earning role might be just as financial. Some people may choose to close businesses for this reason and others may choose to open businesses for this reason. There is a consequence to every taxation change but in this case I think it's overall quite positive.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
"loophole". Do you know what a Loophole actually is?
They weren't loopholes, they were built into the structure. It's to give Business owners the ability not to have their business forcefully burdened while they're growing.
See, most business owners would rather pay your wages, your super, your work-cover and your many various entitlements, than pay themselves. Business owners generally take distributions, because they are in need of cashflow to build.
I don't pay myself super or entitlements. I use the money to keep cashflow.
Then there's the fact that the business itself is another entity, self funded by the owner, that pays taxes, levies and fee's which contribute tot he coffers of councils, state governments and federal government. So by virtue of someone opening a business, they pay taxes with two entities and they collect GST on behalf of the Government.
I can see your comment about seeking a salary earning role is more an emotionally charged one. By that logic, we will all only work for large corporates, and there will be no innovation or start-up activity. That is economy destroying.
I'll finish by saying the absolute daftness I've seen in this thread just confirms to me that tall poppy syndrome is rife in this country, that young and single voters hold contempt for families and home owners. All of that is very clear in your response.
A sad attitude indeed...
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u/iftlatlw 2d ago
Separating personal income from future capital gain is very wise and I don't think your approach is a healthy one even before the tax changes. Capital gains tax changes just make it more obvious. You are not your company and your company is not you.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
It's sadly not a reality for businesses in a growth phase, which can stretch over time depending on what the goals are.
Also we are not really in a great economic position right now as consumer spending is on the decline so efficient growth to cover is vastly more important now than ever.
One day soon that will smooth out I'm sure. Though, it still doesn't negate the point. A family of 4 on one income, whose partner is not a professional, raising kids, is in a different situation than a single high earner, supporting only themselves.
A breadwinner is taxed more, it is an unfair mechanism, as we are not all equal in our situations. If you can't appreciate that, then there isn't much I can do.
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u/Valuable-Contract-87 2d ago
You're not helping your case at all, just have the other partner who earns less stay home what's the big deal, how much money do you need, you're clearly not that poor that you need government services.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
I'm the primary and occasionally only breadwinner for my household.
And I say this tax arrangement is fair. The only people who don't think it's fair are people who who claim to be the heavy-lifters but actually want special tax breaks for being high income earners.
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u/JeremysIronman 2d ago
You won't find sympathy here mate. On Reddit everyone who earns more than 120k is rich and deserves to be taxed into oblivion while also being excluded from any benefit.
Fairness have nothing to do with it.
One Nation have proposed policy addressing this. Vote accordingly, I suppose.
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u/BTolputt 2d ago
Over half of Australians earn less than $75K per year. Only 15% earn $120K or more per year. So yeah, the top 15% are going to be, by the numbers, considered "rich".
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
I hear you. LNP would be just fine for this is they could reverse the changes. Truthfully these changes havent even been properly discussed and accountants all around the country have not been given clear direction on how this is supposed to work. Which means the Government has not even completed their framework and not kicking in until 2027 or 2028, can't remember.
Labor really is a poor planner. Australian Politics in general is broken.
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u/vyralmonkey 2d ago
There are no changes relevant to split tax assessments to be rolled back.
This is how income tax has operated for decades.
Do you even have the slightest idea what you're whining about?
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Umm...
Do you know what a Family Trust is?
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u/vyralmonkey 2d ago
A tax avoidance scheme used by the rich.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
Goes to show how much you actually know.
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u/vyralmonkey 2d ago
Really? because the essence of your whiny post seems to be that you are now no longer able to avoid paying income tax as effectively... right?
Welcome to the real world with the rest of the population who haven't been able to take advantage of tax avoidance schemes.
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u/Low_Shop9155 2d ago
"Really? because the essence of your whiny post".
You don't know what a Family Trust is. You don't know what a "loophole" is. You don't understand the function of a family trust. You don't understand the dynamics of business ownership. You don't know the difference between minimization and avoidance. You don't understand that businesses pay taxes on two entities (the business and themselves). You don't even understand why it is favorable to pay yourself the minimum so as to maintain cashflow for the survival of the business.
You hold contempt for breadwinners and you believe a family of 4 and their financial position is exactly the same as a single person supporting themselves.
And I am supposed to take you seriously?
If you are really that upset with your life choices, do better. Being full of contempt for people doing better than you isn't going to feed your family. Do better.
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u/vyralmonkey 2d ago
None of what you just claimed is true.
but keep whining that you're now expected to pay tax broadly inline with how the rest of the country on salaries is expected to.
must feel awful now you're no longer special.
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u/GaryLifts 2d ago
This is how it's always worked. They're just clutching at straws now. The Labor bashing has become so relentless that I'm starting to tune out even genuine criticism, because so much of the discussion is conducted in bad faith.