On the day the ABS’s annual taxation statistics showed a rare drop in annual average tax paid, Essential Research released a survey which found that 61% of us think that Australians pay too much tax, while only 4% say we pay too little tax.

Tax surveys have a history of being sensitive to the question asked. Another question in this Essential Research survey asked if the respondents were prepared to pay more GST for a series of specific programs. The answers to this question contradicted the answers to the first.

On all five items suggested more than 4% impliedly said we paid too little tax, given that 42% would pay more GST if the money was spent on health and hospitals, 38% said yes to aged pensions, 28% to infrastructure such as roads and railways, 20% to paying off the national debt, and 11% to create a foreign investment fund. And so much for the idea that the GST is to fund the states, too. Continue reading “GST tax and spend” →