Reader John Fletcher has set up a Taxcheck website that tells us how the government is spending our hard-earned tax dollars.
If you earn $50,000 a year, Taxcheck lists expenses ranging from a bargain 13 cents to pay for pharmaceuticals for Aboriginal people to $768 for granny’s pension.
The methodology is:
Estimates of income tax liabilities are calculated through a naive application of 2009/10 marginal income tax rates, with no accounting for the Medicare Levy, Low Income Tax Offset, Family Tax Benefits, or other potentially relevant factors. …The individual contribution to spending on each item in the above table is calculated as tax paid multiplied by that item’s share of total federal expenditure.
Though the numbers are approximate for most taxpayers, Taxcheck is a good idea. It brings the huge aggregate numbers in the budget papers down to figures more readily comprehensible to individual taxpayers.
Andrew Norton 
Well done John. Very clever.
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Well this is how taxpayer dollars are being spent in New South Wales – funding this woman to go around and whack Uni kids. http://www.vexnews.com/news/5452/the-return-of-the-uglies-nsw-liberal-hard-right-mps-invade-sydney-uni-liberal-club-and-fail/
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Don’t suppose I can tax deduct all the contributions on my behalf to charitable/aid organisations…
Where was the itemized amount about how much politicans cost?
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John Fletcher… if you want to use the actual marginal tax rates in Australia (15%, 25%, 16.5%, 20.5%, 35.5%, 31.5%, 39.5%, 46.5%), please feel free to e-mail me and I’ll send you a tax calculator.
I think it is quite unfortunate that we allow the government to keep perpetuating the fiction they call their marginal tax scales. Let’s start using the actual tax scales.
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John – sounds good. Will drop you a line shortly.
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There’s a bug in the number formatting – I saw a value of $7.3 – probably should be $7.03.
It’s a pity Defence isn’t broken down further.
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$200 for the “Fuel Tax Credits Scheme (for commercial users of heavy diesel vehicles)” was a bit of a surprise. I spend enough money on my own fuel thanks.
This seems a clear case of efficient transport decisions been distorted by government subsidies. Appreciate that it encourages truckies to use diesel which is more environmentally friendly, but aren’t they doing that already?
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john F. This is truly a good thing you have done.
Any possibility of highlighting what might well be mainly middle class sponging?
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