At Per Capita’s February John Cain Lunch, Think Forward’s Thomas Walker spoke about the “Tax Wealth Not Work” campaign, and Per Capita’s Emma Dawson spoke about the upcoming Community Tax Summit. Watch the recording below.
All our lives, we’ve been told that hard work leads to economic security and a good life. For many younger Australians, particularly those without family wealth, this now feels like a lie.
Younger workers face higher tax rates than millionaires, property investors, or wealthy retirees because our tax system rewards the wrong things – accumulation, speculation and rent-seeking.
Instead of being able to set up their lives, young people are loaded up with increased education and housing debt, or stuck paying unaffordable rents to grow the wealth of others, all while real wages decline.
There is broad agreement among economists, social security experts, business leaders and the community sector that Australia’s tax and transfer system needs structural reform: to lift productivity, realise the benefits of a net zero economy, fund the essential social services and infrastructure upon which we all rely, and reduce inequality within and between generations
Yet we are told repeatedly that the restructure needed is “too politically difficult” to be attempted. We cannot continue this way. Our children and grandchildren deserve better.
Ahead of the 2025 federal election, Per Capita and partners are hosting a Community Tax Summit to demonstrate that the community has the appetite for this “big conversation”, and show that a genuine, everything-on-the-table approach to tax and transfer reform is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.