Have you ever wondered just how many days worth of work it takes to pay your tax every year, compared to how many days worth of work you get to keep?
If we use the 2008/09 tax tables, it’s pretty easy to figure out. Just enter an annual income ( or simply move the slider from left to right) and not only do you find out the annual tax paid on that income, but if we all paid tax up front on a daily basis, you also find out the day of the year that you would stop paying the government money and started keeping what you earned.
Usual caveats apply – this is just based on the income tax tables and obviously ignores things like Family Tax Benefit right through to investment income etc etc. Because it’s a flash app that clogs up some folks browsers, I’ll put it over the fold.
11 Comments
That’s very nice, but maybe you could knock up a few more applications, where we can put in how many kids we have/have had in school, whether we/our kids are at uni, how many visits to the GP we make each year, how many subsidised prescriptions we fill each year, how much Family Tax Benefit/baby bonus/pension we receive each year, how many hours we watch the ABC each week etc etc, so we can find out how many days *someone else* is working to support us. Just in the spirit of fairness, you know, because looking at this from one side only might perpetuate the idea that ‘The Gummint’ steals our money and we get nothing in return.
So with these great new tax cuts I must work a whole extra day for myself? Great symbolism, I can see the tv ad campaign already.
There is something odd going on a $34000. Seems like a good wage to earn!
DrMick, like all good tax applications – that loophole is now closed
Thanks for picking that up!
While we’re on the subject of tax, I’d like to know why it is that if the population and economy are growing (and hence the tax intake by State & Federal governments) , why are public services in general being rolled back?
This is especially perplexing when I consider that a lot of health, education and other services have been privatised and so aren’t paid for from taxes.
Scottyea, I don’t know about other sectors, but the growth in government funding of health consistently outstrips GDP. Individuals only contribute 17% of total spending on health, compared to almost 70% spent by government. So actually yes, health services are largely paid for by taxes.
Hey Possum, shouldn’t the ‘you start working for yourself’ start at the beginning of the financial year, 1st July 2008?
Ghost – it should if we want to get all serious about it
But if we wanted to really get all serious about it, we’d have to add all of Sgt Pepper’s add-ons, plus proper treatment of investment income, tax deductions and..well, pretty much become the tax office.
And one tax office is probably enough for everyone
You could add a tick box for HECS/HELP debt though, to show how many days we spend repaying that.
How about a slider for how much you got over the medicare limit, and then a multiplier for how much that pharm bill would be without the community cost?
I’m on two a day, which started at $70 a time and are now $20. I’ve known people on $3,000 a treatment meds.
More taxes please. At least we get some governance process on how their spent, unlike company profits…
You missed LITO & Medicare. Published marginal tax rates are simply wrong. Happy to send you the correct marginal tax rates if you’re interested.