Cut taxes to raise more revenue

"In this new book, ten eminent authors explain why and how Australia's system of personal income tax needs reforming. The total tax take in Australia is around the OECD average, but tax on people's incomes is well above average. High income taxes undermine national prosperity. The top rate is out of line with most other western countries, which have been moving to lower and flatter rates. Because the threshold at which people start to pay tax is well below subsistence, people are taxed before they have earned enough to keep body and soul together. The interaction of tax and welfare creates dispiritingly high 'effective marginal tax rates' which deter people on welfare from looking for work and penalize low-wage families whenever they try to increase their take-home pay. Outside of the federal government there is a mounting demand that something radical needs to be done to tackle these problems. This book looks at the options and demonstrates that the case for radical reform is now unanswerable." - back cover.