Tax, and more specifically, the taxation system, may not be great conversation starters, beyond everyone agreeing they pay too much of it, but Shadow Treasurer Brad Rowswell was in Shepparton on Wednesday and Thursday, July 26 and 27, hoping to discuss it with as many people as possible.
“From my perspective, getting our tax system right, although through one lens tax is bats*** boring, right, through one lens it’s boring, but through another lens, it is so critically important for it to be an incentive for private sector investment, not to punish people for making the choices that they want to make,” Mr Rowswell said.
“So that’s why, just at a fundamental level, we think the tax system of Victoria is broken at the moment. We think it’s a poorly conceived Band-Aid on a much bigger problem, and we want to have that conversation with the Victorian people.”
The Coalition has released what it is calling a ‘Making Victoria’s Tax System Work’ discussion paper, which it says intends to further its engagement with the community on ways to reform and improve the state’s taxation system.
“See, for the last nine years, the (Andrews) government’s been spending more than it’s been receiving year-on-year-on-year-on-year,” Mr Rowswell said.
“Now, if you try and do that, as a family, if you try and do that as a small business, revenue, as a large business, it’s going to come back to bite you in the backside at some point.
“The Parliamentary Budget Office says that that debt is likely to be close to $300 billion within the decade, we’re still taxing people more than we’ve ever taxed them before.”
State Member for Northern Victoria, and fellow Liberal, Wendy Lovell said the information-gathering exercise was a major project for the Coalition.
“It’s about being prepared for government and I think I was really heartened by the meetings that we had yesterday (Wednesday) of the actual understanding and the initial ideas that were coming forward from the groups that we spoke to,” Ms Lovell said.
“We want the Committee for Greater Shepparton and the (Greater Shepparton) Business Network to actually sit down and put in a submission and come forward with their ideas because we’re not the wealth of all knowledge, and sometimes the business owners, they do have real solutions and we want their solutions coming forward so we can consider them, and anyone in the community, as Brad said, any business owner, any individual, any accountant in town that has an idea, put it forward.”
