My wife was not impressed when she discovered that someone in our neighbourhood had voted Liberal. It was the franking credits, they told her, they just couldn’t afford Bill Shorten and Labor. Given that they usually vote Labor, it was a shock to her and told me that it made her angry, but she assured me that she didn’t say anything that meant we couldn’t ask them to clean out the junk mail from our letterbox or bring in our bins when we’re away. In the interests of neighbourhood harmony, I decided not to suggest that she should have asked them if a Labor victory would have meant that they needed to sell their beach house…
I’ve pointed out a number of times that I’m not a rusted-on Labor voter. Frequently I’ve voted for minor parties just to send a message to both major parties. However, I certainly haven’t been able to preference the Liberals ahead of them any time this century. Any party that had John Howard as the best person they could find to lead them had to be suspect as far as I was concerned. Tony Abbott made me nostalgic for Howard and Turnbull just made me nostalgic for Turnbull.
Anyway, getting back to the whole franking credits thing…
Look, I know you’re all fed up to the back teeth with it. For years we’ve been told that the ageing population is a problem; that there won’t be enough workers to support them and it’s a problem. Lordy, lordy, it’s a problem and we can’t think of a solution…
A retirement tax! No, that’s so unfair on those who’ve retired and based their retirement on being able to draw an income from their investments that meant that they never have to draw down their principal and that it just keeps growing like a magic pudding. How will I put fuel in my boat if this new tax goes through!
Yes, I know it’s not and it never was a retirement tax but let’s not the facts get in the way of anything!
Now, I could go on and point out all the stuff that’s been pointed out ad finitum, but I’m sure you’re aware that it’s not double taxation and I’m prepared to debate the whole thing with anyone… HOWEVER, I promised you several jokes.
Well, the first is Scott Morrison. When NSW wins the State of Origin, he’ll alienate most of Queensland with his gloating.
The second is the company tax cuts. Now, I know that Labor won’t do this, but they could agree to cut company tax to 25% because they’ve realised that, like those negative gearing and those getting the refunds from franking credits, some companies earn less taxable income than somebody on the dole. Yeah, the whole taxable income thing is a bit of a joke and something like that would point out the absurdity of the Liberals’ arguments.
But best of all, a cut to company tax would lead to a cut to the refund to those retirees who have almost no taxable income. The franking credit is based on company tax which is 30%. If it fell to 25% some of those people who got very, very angry and signed petitions and called it theft, may not notice that the dividends had gone up. They may actually notice that they were getting less money.
And let’s not forget that it would also put a bit of a hole in their so-called Budget surplus.
Why, in a spirit of bipartisanship, let’s agree to a company tax rate of 15%… I’d like to see how the Liberals would get out of that one.
