FAIRFAX, as both readers and investors are well aware, is in all sorts of trouble, so it is good to see innovation being brought to bear on the company’s bottom line. The agent of change is none other than A Dill Horin, who continues to demonstrate that, when it comes to reporting, her expertise starts and ends with the keyboard’s CONTROL + C function. Sooner or later, someone at Fairfax World Headquarters will notice there is no need to pay her, as it would be much cheaper to give her friends in the Caring Industrial Complex open access to run their press releases untouched in the pages of the Silly and Phage. But such is her concern for shareholders, A Dill selflessly persists in providing further demonstrations why she is not needed. Consider her article in this morning’s paper, which reports on the Australian Council of Social Service’s notions of a better and more equitable tax system.
ACOSS yesterday issued a press release in which it summarised the many areas of the productive economy it would penalise to support the social workers and hanky-wringers whose mortgages depend on an assured supply of mendicants, these days known as “clients”. Demonstrating the skills of a modern Fairfax prober, she then went to the extraordinary trouble of actually opening a .pdf file. No doubt exhausted by that effort, she then cut and pasted big chunks of the ACOSS position paper beneath her byline and the heading "Tax breaks for wealthy under fire".
A DILL: ... proposed measures would help resolve the tension between the government's commitment to restore the budget to surplus from 2012-13 and the urgency of unmet social needs.
ACOSS: The submission aims to resolve the tension between the Government’s commitment to restore the Budget to surplus from 2012-13 and the urgency of social and economic needs not yet met
A DILL: ...Australia is the eighth-lowest taxing country among the 30 developed nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Australians were not overtaxed but taxed unfairly and inefficiently. The main problem was an array of tax shelters and loopholes that enabled well-off people to avoid paying tax at the appropriate marginal rate.
ACOSS: Australia is the eighth lowest taxing country among the 30 OECD nations. Australians are not over-taxed, but they are taxed unfairly and inefficiently. The main problem is an array of tax shelters and loopholes that enable well off people to avoid paying tax at the appropriate marginal rate.
A DILL: ACOSS says individuals could reduce the marginal tax rates on their income by:
■Sheltering income in a private trust.
■Sacrificing salary for superannuation, which enabled taxpayers on the top marginal rate to reduce their tax rate from 46.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
■Taking advantage of the concessional treatment of ''golden handshakes'', which in many cases were taxed at 15 per cent.
ACOSS: Individual taxpayers can reduce the marginal tax rates on their income by:
* sheltering income in a private trust;
* sacrificing salary for superannuation, which enables a tax-payer on the top marginal rate to reduce their tax rate from 46.5% to 15%; and
* taking advantage of the concessional tax treatment of termination payments such as ‘golden handshakes’, which in many cases are also taxed at the relatively low rate of 15%
A DILL: In addition, small businesses could reduce their tax by taking advantage of capital gains tax concessions not available to other taxpayers, and international companies could shift profits from Australia to lower tax jurisdictions while maximising Australian debt levels.
ACOSS: Businesses can reduce their tax by:
* in the case of international companies, shifting profits from Australia to other lower tax ju-risdictions by maximising their Australian debt levels and their overseas profit levels (profit shifting);
* in the case of small business, taking advantage of Capital Gains Tax concessions not available to other taxpayers.
What remains of A Dill’s report is a lightly paraphrased regurgitation of the ACOSS press realease.
Isn’t it good to see Fairfax putting such an emphasis on quality journalism?
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A-dill, you've just been PWNED, baby!!
ReplyDeleteShe would have done better to actually question the ACOSS report rather than copy it. It's actually well written in terms of achieving its goal of misrepresenting the facts, but it's a shoddy piece as a "report".
ReplyDeleteHorin could have pointed out that concessional CGT rates don't apply to other taxpayers because they don't get taxed at all on capital gains and large business gets whacked even harder. It would have been relevant for her to point out that those taxpayers locking away their income for the future are getting a concessional tax rate in exchange for a 100% reduction in the pensions the government would otherwise have to pay them. Or point out that Australia actually has a very harsh regime to penalise companies who attempt to shift their income to lower tax jurisdictions, by the use of debt or other forms.
Double Dillage for swallowing it AND copying it
A bit OT - ie not about A Dill - but had to comment.
ReplyDeleteACOSS should stop talking about tax and start focusing on meeting the needs of its ostensible constituency - our most disadvantaged.
Why should anyone in the productive economy pay more tax so organisations like ACOSS can pander to ridiculous fads - like hiring a climate change researcher. Just how is that contributing to helping the poor?
http://www.seek.com.au/Job/senior-policy-and-research-officer-climate-change/in/sydney-cbd-inner-west-eastern-suburbs/21383368
on matters SMH, has anyone noticed the contrary stance taken recently that's even more blatantly left than usual? Take the publicising of the decision to deport the 7 foot thug back to New Zealand, the 3 idiots who boarded the Japanese whaling vessel and today, the valediction of a graffitist who had been squashed by a train. The SMH intoned that 'tagging' was a rite of passage for all teenagers. All of the above issues were given far more hand wringing than was deserved,lowering the paper even further.
DeleteTwo girls at my daughter's secondary school were caught plagiarising for an assignment in this way from a Wikipedia article. They were given a 'fail' grade for the assignment.
ReplyDelete"A DILL: In addition, small businesses could reduce their tax by taking advantage of capital gains tax concessions not available to other taxpayers,"
ReplyDeleteYes Ms Dill and how the hell can those other taxpayers gain those "concessions" when unlike small businesses they haven't purchased income producing properties as just one simple example.
You, madam, obviously not only have zero idea of the nature of CGT concessions, you swallowed hook line and sinker the views of ACOSS.
A Dill without doubt. Journalist, like hell.
Wow. Shameless.
ReplyDeletemr.simmon
ACOSS master plan : Discourage people from saving for their own welfare in retirement, and therefore put more people on the age pension with further future drains on the public purse. ACOSS wants to increase its constituency of dependent welfare recipients, yielding more political power. In the meantime the government can use the increase revenue to spend on useful gewgaws like school halls, pink batts, and NBN, or even the Krudd designed future submarine. Of course when the pension liability falls due, the government will find someone else to shake down, er, I mean tax. What happens when Australia runs out of someone else's ?
ReplyDeleteAll this of course beyond head-tilty A Dill's five second attention span.
No Worries
"ACOSS wants to increase its constituency of dependent welfare recipients, yielding more political power."
ReplyDeleteThe rise and rise of the Victim-Industrial Complex.
"Sacrificing salary for superannuation, which enabled taxpayers on the top marginal rate to reduce their tax rate from 46.5 per cent to 15 per cent."
ReplyDeletePffft. That's nothing. I'm not on the top marginal rate so with judicious superannuation contributions I can reduce my tax to zero. Stick that in your pipe, ACOSS.
Of course, Journalism is so superior to Public Relations, as taught by by Other People when I was at Tech with Chris and Wendy.
ReplyDeleteGo to the 2011 ACOSS report and the following appears in the notes to the financial statements, “Accounting Policies a. Income Tax, The Association is endorsed by the Australian Taxation Office as a Charitable Institution. In accordance with the Association’s income tax exemption status, no provision for income tax is raised in these financial reports.” Given this tax free status, let's hear from the SMH whether salary packaging arrangements apply for ACOSS staff.
ReplyDelete