Do we really need a tax cut?

[davidpretorius]

Would people get cranky if the government halted the tax cuts to try and alleviate inflation pressures.

I know it would be a "broken promise", but would people care if they broke this particular promise?

[iceman (Mike)]

Interest rates going up = bad.
Tax cuts = good.

Tax cuts = more spending = higher interest rates = bad.

Tough decision.

[netwolf]

Sometimes our Politicians really make me wonder... Foreclosures are on the up in NSW. Before you had a few now there are Bank Auctions mostly in Western Sydney. I dont know how any can stomach the idea of someone loosing there house or farm. Its sense less. I dont mind paying more tax if it means this will stop, but then i am not a politician or bureaucrat.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

I think a promise is a promise, and should be kept.

The major problem we Aussies have is that we have too much credit debt. If people used the tax cuts to reduce their personal debt, we would be cushioned from the impact of rising interest rates.

Don't forget that those with money to invest actually benefit from rising interest rates.

I think the Rudd government should prioritise a clamping down on reckless marketing and behaviour by lending institutions. The Banks truly do prey on the weak and vulnerable, and deserve to be kept in check.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by davidpretorius

I know it would be a "broken promise", but would people care if they broke this particular promise?

If this promise was broken I wouldn't dare go near a radio or tv during the next election campaign.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

For the record I would support targetted tax cuts to those around average full time earnings and below. High income earners have already had theirs.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

have to agree with you there Rod

the lending bodies make it too easy to borrow money
and when it goes pie eyed - WE pay for it - not the lending bodies

they just put their rates and charges up

lending rules need to be changed - bring back the 20% deposit and percentage of income rules

geoff

[h0ughy (David)]

tax cuts = more astro gear

[Ric]

I prefer an interest rate cut any day to a tax cut. It still equates into astro goodys.

Cheers

[Nightshift]

I dont get the moderation of this forum, I thought we were not allowed to start threads based on politcs or religion?

This thread is 100% based on a political arguement that could easily encite aggrevation, if I made my own personal comment on this topic I know it would ruffle some feathers, so, my opinion is that the moderators should lock this thread now before the inevitable happens and stick to some kind of continuity with moderation, either allow politics and religion or ban it but stop this maybe/maybe not policy.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

i would think it was an economics question rather than political

but that's just ME

geoff

[Ric]

I agree Geoff, I see it as a question/discussion on economics

Not that I know much about that anyway

Cheers

[avandonk]

The real problem here is that ordinary Australians are taxed at rates that would make the rich leave the country. The simple premise is not political as both sides were going to do much the same thing. We are overtaxed as individuals compared with the largess shown companies and the company 'welfare'. If we got decent Government investment in infrastructure which benefits all of us, i would forego any tax cuts.

But then again I remember all the previous financial stuff ups perpetrated by financial geniuses right back to the late sixties. Funny thing is, the ordinary man ends up paying for it!

If you look through history you will find that NOTHING has fundamentally changed. Only the names of the guilty will change. The modus operandi does not!

Bert

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

You mean you people are paying tax..?

Seriously, dead weight arguments aside, the question really is whether governments should accumulate surplusses and what should they do with them.

More and better training positions to contain inflationary wage pressures, investment in infrastructure to unblock bottlenecks and improve productivity. (Those coal ships banked up off Newcastle are a national disgrace.) Renewable energy investment. Hospitals, schools, pensions. Then tax cuts.

Just MHO.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

if you don't borrow money - who cares what the interest rate is ?

unless your an investor that is

geoff

[ving (David)]

tax cuts = more lenses...

inflation = less lenses?

6 of one...

[mick pinner]

so what does a small tax cut do for the individual? nothing. multiplied by a couple of million people, inflation. to grab a couple of dollars now is ridiculous when you consider what it will do to long term interest rates.

[rumples riot]

Yes give me a tax cut. I paid 42,000 last year in tax and I could spend that more usefully on more astro gear. LOL. I don't care if interest rates go up as I own everything I have and want my money in my self managed super to sky rocket.

Sorry for all you people who have mortgages.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

It does not matter...Interest Rates are likely to go up either way.

Either the Fed steps in and raises rates in an effort to slow inflation or...

Lending institutions raise rates to recoup losses from bad loans (from too easy credit here or abroad).

The better economic question is related to the size (if any) surplus a government should run versus the services they provide.

While I dislike paying my "fair share" of tax as much as the next guy/gal (and know that I pay tax here and overseas!)...For improved service in public goods (such as public roads, public hospitals, public schools, public etc.) I'd be willing (but not happy) to let them keep a bit of my tax cut...

The question is who can better spend the money to generate the most "good"...

[xelasnave]

I don’t understand why we see that we have a surplus. as a Nation...the Federal Government can boast a surplus however it seems all the State Governments (maybe the Local Governments. I don’t know) carry huge deficits... so where do we really stand.

And why are the States in hock anyways? Where has all the cash gone from the sale of any asset that was not nailed down...Federal or State that is the case... we have to rent what once was ours..buildings phones roads bridges..what gives?


It seems we have an illusion that we are doing well because we see the Federal picture and yet each State is in debt to the eye balls...

So what is the real picture? I ask because I don’t know.
Does anyone here understand and able to comment.

I think something really needs to be done about the slack lending that leaves us with the recurring crisis that this time around is called the prime loans problem..

Each time one hears the news another bank admits to what must have been know months ago that that have been stung... it is as if we let only a little be know at a time no one will notice.. and besides the personal lose via super funds all will have to pay higher interest because they stuffed up..

A decade ago it was Home Fund in this country and a little before in the USA is was the Saving Trust Crisis..
It seems to me that folk run around set up loans that not only will come back to destroy the borrower if they don’t refinance before the axe drops but then on sell their group of loans to other financial institutions sorrtta like it is selling a good business..the folk buying don’t really look at what they are buying into as I suspect they are represented by Super Funds and Banks who are interested in buying "big" deals and really do not look at the solidarity of the business they buy... as a result those who made the bad loans get good cash and move on leaving shareholders in Banks and Super Funds holding their sick baby..it seems like a criminal and recurring event that the little guy loses out on each and every time...

Has anyone looked at their super fund and how the current crisis has made them need to work a few years longer?

This is maybe a distorted view and I welcome input and discussion as this loan thing happens every decade or so and its seems to claim "poor" victims whilst some must make huge profits.

Also on the subject of interest rates why can a Government no find some other way of controlling fiscal policy.. after all what they do when they put up interest rates is really putting someone out of a job..that last guy they put on now has to go..the approach where the economic books openly state "the optimum unemployment policy" as a means to control the economy seems to me a sad condemnation upon our inability to come up with something better.
Sorry if this is a bit all over as I really know so little about economics I thought that maybe an astronomy forum would be a good place to raise the above matters as maybe most of us are in the dark...

hope this makes some sense
alex

[mick pinner]

speaking of self managed super funds, have you seen the stock exchange today another 6-8 billion down the drain.