Shua Garfield, Hobart
Since the Coalition's federal budget was launched, the Socialist Alliance has waged a campaign to raise support for its demands to tax the rich more and the poor less.
A tax tug-of-war has emerged in the local newspaper, while the alliance has taken its message to the community through doorknocking and a campaign stall on May 28 outside Liberal Senator Paul Calvert's office in Rosny. A leaflet was distributed outlining the case for taxing the rich, based on letters to the local newspaper.
The May 17 Mercury carried a letter by the Socialist Alliance's candidate for the federal seat of Denison, Kamala Emanuel, which was critical of "tax cuts that will only benefit a small minority of workers". Emanuel called for a rise in the tax-free threshold "from the current miserable $6000 up to at least $15,000".
Calvert responded in the May 21 Mercury, arguing that "all wage and salary earners" had received a tax cut the previous year, that income taxes were reduced in 2000 "for large numbers of Tasmanians" and that the same year, the tax-free threshold had been raised. He argued that further raising the tax-free threshold "would cost at least $13.77 billion each year ... with the highest-remunerated taxpayer receiving the same tax saving as the lowest earning."
A third letter, by Alex Bainbridge of the Socialist Alliance — unpublished by the Mercury as of May 28 — pointed out that Calvert failed to mention the GST, which was brought in at the same time as the 2000 tax cuts, followed by a cut in the company tax rate. These changes meant that income tax relief for the poor was undermined by a consumption tax, and the burden for taxation was shifted towards the poor and away from the corporations. Bainbridge advocated restoring the company tax rate to its 1988 level of 49%.
From Green Left Weekly, June 2, 2004.
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