By Stephen Robson
Taxation figures for the past 20 years show that the share of national income going to the rich has increased dramatically under the Labor government. Since 1983, taxation has become steadily less effective as a means of reducing the gap between rich and poor.
According to Macquarie University School of Economic and Financial Studies lecturer Marc Lombard, the 800,000 who make up the top 10% of taxpayers now accrue more than a quarter of all taxable income in any given year. In 1982-83, the 61,000 who made up Australia's top 1% earned as much as the bottom 11% of income earners. By 1989-90, the top 1% earned as much as the bottom 18%. In other words, the 80,000 at the very top earned as much taxable income as the bottom 1.45 million Australians.
While the income share of the bottom 10% has been reduced from 3.52% to 2.85% in the past seven years, the top 10% have stretched their share from 21.85% to 25.05%.
The proportion of taxable income grabbed by the rich is now back up to the level of the mid-'60s, undoing changes in the income balance achieved by the trade union movement under the Whitlam Labor government. The Fraser Liberal government was unable to reverse the trend begun under Whitlam, with the result that 1978-79 was the year in which the top 10% garnered its lowest proportion of taxable income.
As might be expected, women come out worst in all this. Now making up 43% of all taxpayers, women make up 60% of the bottom 10%, and only 22% of the top 1%, up a little from 13% in 1967-68.
The overall situation is certainly worse than the official figures indicate, as taxable income tends to underestimate the proportion taken by the rich for two main reasons:
- The poorest in Australian society are those — mainly on welfare — whose income is below the tax threshold, and who therefore don't make it into the tax statistics. Inclusion of the non-taxable unemployed and students on Austudy would even more dramatically confirm the growth of class inequality in Australia.
- The figures are distorted by the exclusion of the non-taxable income of the rich, such as company cars, apartments and some allowances.