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Thread: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

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    God/dess GoldCoastGirl's Avatar
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    Default AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    FROM news.com.au

    Taxing times for toiling mums

    By Sue Dunlevy
    May 04, 2007 01:00am

    Article from:


    MOTHERS do 70 per cent of the housework and more than 90 per cent of the childcare. Now it seems they're also paying tax at three times the rate of their husbands.

    A tax symposium was told Australia has one of the most sexist systems in the world and it could be part of the reason we're facing a skills crisis.


    What self-respecting mother would bother entering the work force if her long hours at work actually left her family worse off by $6.25 per week?


    Why is it that the male primary earner in a family on average pays just 10.3 per cent of his income in tax but his wife loses on average 32.7 per cent if she goes out to work?


    In the past it was sexist social traditions and biased public service rules that kept women out of the workforce.


    Read more @ http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...007146,00.html


    enter: E3167322D9 for your 10% discount

  2. #2
    aussiepunkshocker
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    Yes, totally, totally crazy!
    Im not effected by it of course but my friends with younger kids are. Bloody ridiculous!

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    truthfully, the federal + state plus local income tax picture in many US states like California and New York isn't any different than this. It's just much more difficult to put the numbers together because the taxes and benefits come from / go to three different sources. But the end result is the same. The 'progressive' tax rates and loss of benefit eligibility basically insure that a working class mom who can't qualify for a higher skill job paying $US 40,000+ per year isn't going to see much change in her standard of living whether she sits home, or works at a minimum wage job, or works at a $12 an hour job.

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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    Peter Costello is handing down the Federal Budget tomorrow night...there should be a few interesting developments coming out of it, particularly the leaked changes to the Child Care Rebate.

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    God/dess jaizaine's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    It sucks for average earning families. My cousin's wife earns a slightly higher wage than him and they live in Sydney. They found that with the cost of childcare, if both of them worked, they were $200 worse off a week than they would be if he stayed home and cared for the children so that is what they did for a while. It does not give people much incentive to work harder.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    It does not give people much incentive to work harder.
    well, that is the essence of 'moral hazard' in terms of generous social welfare benefits and tax credits (subsidies) tied to a hard eligibility threshold in terms of annual income. This structure basically guarantees that a 'poor' person who is not working has the same de-facto standard of living as a 'poor' person who IS working ! The hard income eligibility threshold, which in the USA falls somewhere around $27k a year = $ 13 an hour, requires that 'poor' people either improve their earnings potential well beyond the $ 13 an hour level, or they might as well work at an easy job for $7 an hour vs a difficult job for $12 an hour !

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    God/dess Lysondra's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    I'm confused. The tax says married women... then women with children... do I get affected for being married? Sadly 31% is still less than what I'm paying now.


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    God/dess Nautilus's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    it's only relevant if you're a mother receiving family assistance/welfare payments.

    otherwise you're just you and your usual tax rate... until you get knocked up!
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    Quote Originally Posted by Nautilus View Post
    it's only relevant if you're a mother receiving family assistance/welfare payments.

    otherwise you're just you and your usual tax rate... until you get knocked up!
    Are you TRYING to curse me?!

    Meanie!


    Look like a woman
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    - My Great Grandmother Bessie's Recipe for Success

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    God/dess Nautilus's Avatar
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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    heh!

    nah, you're fortified with that stick in your arm. safe... for now. *cackles*
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    Some points to note:

    The article is rather misleading because it quotess the average tax rate for men at 10.1% and in very next sentence quotes thirty-something percent for women "if you include welfare benefits lost". Talk about comparing apples to oranges, people!

    The problem of high effective taxation is not unique to women, or even secondary income earners. In the system we have now, at some point you need to phase out family welfare benefits, and it's at that point where you get the double taxation of your income being taxed AND losing welfare benefits that leads to the high marginal tax rates. Men also suffer. As do male secodary workers, though they are admittedly in the minority.

    As Melonie has pointed out, welfare benefits are not taken "as of right". It annoys me when people compare their situation when working, with that to receiving welfare as if they're entitled to other taxpayer's hard earned money.

    The solution is not to tie welfare to family income. Give family less welfare, but don't take it away if they work.

    Another solution is to remove the 15% tax bracket. That encourages work in general, and also addresses the voluntarily unemployed (colloquially called the dole bludgers)

    I would not leave the system as it is and just be more generous to secondary workers in terms of letting them keep more benefits.

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    Default Re: AUSTRALIA: Taxing times for toiling mums

    ^^^ good theory, but ...

    There's unfortunately no politically palatable way for govt's to take away benefits once they have been granted. Those benefits have to be paid for by somebody. Right now part of the benefit bill is being paid for taxpayers earning more than $27k. If you propose taking action to allow the next tier of taxpayers (i.e. the 15% tax bracket from $28k to $40k or so) to keep more of their own money, then the shortfall in revenue must be recovered by increasing taxes on somebody else. Since the 'rich' always wind up side-stepping higher taxes by one clever means or another, your proposal translates into a tax increase on the 'middle class' i.e. those earning $50k+ per year, i.e. the vast majority of dancers !

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