I discovered a way to stop paying tax. Become a Millionaire!

seanbaussie on 07/05/2013 - 09:53

Hi all,

Just reading http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/the-70-mega-ric… and it seems if you really want a bargain on your tax return then become a millionaire and pay your tax agent a lot. Then you won't have to pay tax.

"The statistics released last week show that the 70 earned $194 million among them but by the time their accountants had finished, that had been cut to less than $20,000 in taxable income, or $1 of taxable income for every $9999 that went untaxed.

Only 30 of them claimed deductions for tax advice but between them, they paid their accountants and lawyers $33 million, or more than $1 million each."

Wonder whether Mr Norman knows about this?

Financial

Comments

  • siraitken on 07/05/2013 - 10:04
    -3

    They were able to offset their income by carry forward losses…

    It was 70 tax payers out of how many?

    The article is rubbish.

  • mick123 on 07/05/2013 - 10:16

    Typical rubbish from Fairfax.

    • arcticmonkey on 07/05/2013 - 18:07

      Very good argument you put up there.

      Typical rubbish from 'mick123'?

  • scotty on 07/05/2013 - 12:42
    +4

    Interesting stats:

    The figures show 99.3 per cent of Australia's millionaires did pay tax in 2010-11 and 98.9 per cent paid a lot: $8.74 billion among them. That 0.1 per cent of taxpayers paid almost 10 per cent of all income tax.

    So it's not that millionaires don't pay that. You have to be the 0.7% of that million-dollar-income group that can find enough expenditure / previous losses to offset your income. In fact those millionaires pay a lot of tax.

  • one man clan on 07/05/2013 - 13:53
    +1

    I think the point is that tax minimisation schemes allow significant income earners to use creative accounting to minimise their liabilities, which is not in line with the relative contribution of those in lower income brackets.

    It's not "Fairfax rubbish", it's the nature of our incredibly complex tax system.

    The political background of this site is interesting.

    • arcticmonkey on 07/05/2013 - 18:06

      You'll often find people on million dollar incomes paying less of a proportion of tax than people earning $70,000 per year. Why? Because they know how to use offshore accounts and other schemes to pay less tax.

      Many companies do the same. A good documentary is here: http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/capitalism_a_love_story_…

      • leiiv on 09/05/2013 - 23:41

        The political background of our tax system is also interesting. Why make it simple if it can be made as complex as possible?
        Is there any good, freely available, resources that uncover and explain in details those legal but unknown-to-general-public creative accounting techniques and schemes in Australia? We should campaign for those to be thought in our public school!!

        • tooblue on 15/05/2013 - 11:28

          Don't be naive, show some sympathy. Without the deliberately made complex systems, lawyers and accountants are nothing.

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