Australian Flood Tax

AndyT

AndyT

AndyT

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12294834

Basically, for 12 months the Australian Government are charging an extra 0.5% income tax to those earning £50k-$100k and an extra 1% for those earning over $100k. The aim being to raise around $2bn to help pay for the flood cleanup and regeneration.

I think it's a great idea, and shows that the Australian Government is progressive and that the Australian nation share a good sense of solidarity with each other.

Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I just can't see this ever happening in the UK should we ever be affected by floods on the scale seen in Oz. There'd be so much moaning and whinging from the public and the Governemnt wouldn't dare to raise the issue for failure of losing votes.

Although we're pretty good at giving charity donations to victims of the Cockermouth floods etc; on the whole the nation would probably implode at the idea of an additional tax, even though it's tiny in the grand scheme of things.
 
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If the UK was affected by the size of the Austrailian floods then charging high earners 05.-1% would the last thing on everyones mind.
 
I think you need to understand real life vs what the media potray especially in the UK.

Australians arent happy about this, in fact the general consensous is that the tax will remain in place after the 12months and this is effectively a sneaky way of introducing it.

the implementation in particular is beyond stupidity.
 
So, forced charity in a way? I kind of see the point in it but I wouldn't be happy about it. Why not cut their foreign aid for the equivalent sum and run a few telemarathons of some sort to raise the funds?
 
Other than their awesomely strict immigration policy there is not much that the .au government does that is aspirational. Progressive? No.
 
kgi said:
So, forced charity in a way? I kind of see the point in it but I wouldn't be happy about it. Why not cut their foreign aid for the equivalent sum and run a few telemarathons of some sort to raise the funds?
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Telethons will raise a few million quid but you'll need to run a hell of a lot of them to raise £1.2bn. The UK's biggest - Children in Need only raised £18m last year and of course there's more people here than in Aus.
 
scorza said:
Telethons will raise a few million quid but you'll need to run a hell of a lot of them to raise £1.2bn. The UK's biggest - Children in Need only raised £18m last year and of course there's more people here than in Aus.
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Really?
 
DAIR said:
People take out insurace to pay for such damage... Then the authorities come out and say "we're going to tax you a little more, to repair the rest of the country".... Not so nice imo!
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People don't take out insurance for their local roads and infrastructure though which is what a lot of this money will go towards repairing and replacing I'd imagine.
 
Spunkey said:
Probably because they're tied into agreements for X amount of years (as we are) which is why you can't renege on them. Cutting foreign aid would only see savings over 10-15 years.
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The agreement relies on what the Aussies want to do surely? They are the ones handing out the money, they are not exactly obliged to do so are they? I'd find that weird. They could anyway readjust the length of the agreement to fewer years and borrow the money now from the markets and pay it back later - job's done.

As for the savings, in 2008-09 Australia alocated $3.8 billion to foreign aid (it's in their summary of annual review of development effectiveness for 2009), so I'd think it would make a significant difference.
 
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