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Stable Genius
Durka durka


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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Stable Genius] 2
#27319207 - 05/22/21 07:59 PM (2 years, 8 months ago) |
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Stable Genius] 1
#27507403 - 10/17/21 01:28 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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Stable Genius
Durka durka


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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: sudly]
#27507449 - 10/17/21 03:02 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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That billboard in Times Square is gold 
It's bizarro... I'm waiting for the cigar to explode, ya know? ... like imagine these pair of twats AND Newscorp all going green at the same time? I'm sure I'm missing something here??
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Stable Genius
Durka durka


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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Oz_Salvia]
#27568529 - 12/04/21 01:36 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Lol. Maybe you should post who you're voting for in the sustainability thread? Nothing says sustainability like coal right? These are the greedy obnoxious fucktards you're voting for you do realise?... Of course you do 
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Oz_Salvia
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: sudly]
#27573113 - 12/08/21 02:26 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said: And kudos to those that do.
Well, I guess you won't like this post given your kudos to the Left.
And yes I could get caught in the weeds and argue on all your points or just shrug and accept you're either in the club or you're not. This club will grow as why leave what is the best country (so you're right there).
Seventy-three millionaires paid no tax in 2017-18, while Australia's richest people live in Sydney's Double Bay, on average earning more than 16 times the nation's poorest, who live in central-west Queensland. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-18/tax-stats-2017-18-ato-millionaires-no-tax/12467016?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment
From my summary sheet the conservative retirement model I crafted in May 2019 for the years 2019 to 2029 has been eclipsed by 160k and we're only in 2021. I started the count from September 2019 and is currently 3.622-mil, and the previous FY reached ~3.5-mil. I'll see how I go at the end of this FY quarter and there may be a Santa rally. Doesn't include the property I own, or gold bullion, and cash I side line for shares and doing nicely on the Omicron dip we've had.

Here's my tax for the FY. I redacted the income dollars so it's somewhere in $17,000 and the return to somewhere in $2,000 and the ATO number. It even came with a return. Why? Because I came in under $18,200 income so it was zero tax. Same for my wife and her tax return was even better than mine. Only way to get ahead is tax minimisation. We're over $1,000 every day, weekends too since the count started; yes, aiming to be in the same club the ABC article ^above howled about.

Too true, this was Kerry Packer's accountant...
Another myth is people go round and say 'I'm paying more tax therefore I must be making a lot of money', that's rubbish, you pay more tax because you've got a lazy accountant. https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/kerry-packers-former-accountant-allan-mason-shares-secret-tax-tips/59669c2d-e62f-4141-910f-db71f9714cfa
From the same link ^above. Kerry Packer is totally correct...
I am not evading tax, in any way shape or form, now of course I am minimising my tax and if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax they want their heads read, because as a government I can tell you, you're not spending it that well, that we should be donating extra," Mr Packer told the room back in 1991.
Kerry Packer was at one point Australia's richest man and even managed a mere $30.55 income tax.
Packer stated in 1991: 'I pay whatever tax I am required to pay under the law--not a penny more, not a penny less.' As this case demonstrates, it is perfectly legal under the present order for an individual with a multi-billion dollar fortune to pay absolutely no tax. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/10/tax-o15.html
His ATO notice of assessment would have looked similar to mine. Total legend as a billionaire to achieve that. Inspiration!
All 100% legal; unlike the hoards of drug dealers on these boards who declare zero of their illicit gains despite their profits milking their buyers' burglaries and other theft. Yes, on this type of board I'm sure I'd earn more acrimony from this post than if was a drug dealer who increases violence and crime. Where as on the Motley Fool forums they all praise any who get to zero tax to keep margins fat.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Oz_Salvia]
#27575440 - 12/10/21 12:55 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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You're referring to income tax, some people like Elon Musk limit their income tax greatly compared to what the average person can do.
And there isn't mention of capital gains taxes in your linked article.
Quote:
ProPublica obtained confidential IRS data on thousands of wealthy people in its analysis. The analysis found that Mr Musk, as well as other prominent US billionaires, escaped paying federal income taxes.
The 25 richest Americans “saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018,” the publication reported. But collectively those Americans paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes over those five years, which was a true tax rate of just 3.4 per cent.
This compared to the median US households that earned about $70,000 annually but paid a 14 per cent tax rate to the federal government. Couples in the highest tax rate paid 37 per cent to the federal government for annual earnings of higher than $628,300, the analysis added.
Billionaire Warren Buffett, who had a reported income of $125 million over the five years despite his wealth growing 24.3 billion in that same timeframe, paid the lowest tax rate out of those analysed by the publication. His true tax rate was just 0.10 per cent.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, paid a total of $973 million in taxes to the federal government over the five-year period for his reported income of $4.22 billion, making his true tax rate 0.98 per cent.
Then Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP, reported an income of $10 billion but paid just $292 million to the federal government for a true tax rate of 1.3 per cent.
ProPublica noted that billionaires have access to “tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people,” which has likely assisted them in paying a lower true tax rate compared to the average American.
But the obtained IRS reports show a significant divide between America’s top earners and the rest of the country in percentage of wealth paid back to the federal government.
ProPublica did not disclose how it obtained the tax records, which are confidential to the private individual and illegal for the IRS to distribute.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-income-taxes-propublica-b1862013.html

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The issue there is an appropriate award wage. A fair day's wage for a fair day's work. Only fair.
Expect though, if the US were to do this, to pay more for a pair of jeans or other consumables as we do in Australia. Products are far cheaper in the US as the wages paid there are low. Hence why so many rely on tips. The US consequently has a tip culture which is not the case here. If you go to a café or restaurant here you're not expected to tip.

Living with your parents is a great way to save money. Family dynamics can be a complicated affair at times and living with your parents can be a serious compromise to privacy and mental health.
It seems to me that independence is a riskier choice, but it is because nowadays the proportion of your salary required to own a home has tripled in the last 40 years!
Looking into the investment market is a good strategy, but with potential for exponential growth I think the system should have caps.
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I still can't see how extra CGT and inheritance taxes will make property more affordable to you?
It's not that the tax revenue of extra CGT, inheritance and stock trading taxes would make housing more affordable, it's that they would provide more finances for public services like education, health, public transport and infrastructure.
I think Australia has a more decent minimum wage, at least here we don't rely on tips!
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Oz_Salvia] 1
#27576527 - 12/10/21 06:50 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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You don't want to regulate loopholes that allow capital gains taxes to be avoided.
You don't want a wealth tax specific to billionaires and multimillionaires.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats on Monday proposed a 2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/03/01/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-propose-3percent-wealth-tax-on-billionaires.html
I get it that you want the bottom line to be padded, but there are 'bad' practices that allow for this, like using government subsidies to do stock buybacks, and monopolising pharmaceuticals to remove competition, price gouging and having no other companies that can challenge you.
From a shareholders point of view, all the peasants are dispendible and if their life is on the line it makes it easier to squeeze them for money.
Where on this scale do you think I am?

Corporate tax cuts for the most part don't lead to foreign investment, wage or job growth, but instead returns to shareholders or investment.
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While pie eating seems like a pretty Australian thing to do (cutlery or no cutlery), this part of the argument depends on us believing that: company tax cuts = increased foreign investment = a better economy = more jobs and increased wages for workers.
Firstly we should tackle some of the assumptions here. When people (usually business lobby groups) say things like “what’s good for business is good for Australia” the underlying message is: working Australian’s will be better off when businesses are making more money. This assumes that workers will somehow benefit from those profits. Benefiting from them would mean pay rises or more jobs or more secure jobs. In the case of company tax cuts what the business lobby is saying is: if the company pays less tax they have more money to spend on ‘other things’.
We’ve already seen that there doesn’t seem to be any real relationship between cutting company tax rates and increases in foreign investment. But we can still look at whether there is any benefit for workers in cutting company tax rates. Cutting the company tax rate from 30 to 25% will at least result, theoretically, in companies keeping 5% of their taxable income that previously went into government revenue. So what is likely to happen to this money?
What will those ‘other things’ be? Are they likely to be wage increases and new jobs? To answer these questions we can look around the world, and here in Australia, at the connection between company tax rates and living standards.
When we mapped countries company tax rates against their living standards (which you can get a sense of by working out the GDP per capita) we found that there was no correlation between company tax rate and living standard. In fact, if anything, a country is slightly more likely to have a higher living standard if they have a higher company tax rate. So, on a global level at least, lower company tax rates don’t mean better living standards.
But what about in Australia? If company tax cuts are good for workers you’d expect that since the peak of company tax rates at 49% in 1986 to their current low of 30% you’d have seen wages increase. Instead what we see is that, as a share of our gross domestic product, wages have fallen by 13%.
When people talk about GDP what they’re talking about is ‘the pie’; everything in the whole economy that was bought and sold in a year; all the ‘economic’ activity, including wages. So despite a 19% decrease in the company tax rate, workers share of ‘the pie’ has declined by 13%.
So where does the money from company tax cuts actually go? Who’s getting more pie? While we’ve seen that lowering the company tax rate doesn’t increase ‘the pie’ in Australia, it must do something for the business lobby to be so excited about it. And since Australian workers aren’t seeing any increase in their share of ‘the pie’, who is benefitting?
If we keep looking at wages what we find is that decline in the share going to workers is almost matched by a corresponding increase in the share of GDP (‘the pie’) going to corporate profits — especially the financial sector. And while that’s worrying in itself it doesn’t tell the full story about the corporate tax cuts.
To understand a bit better we can look at a few things.
Firstly, what do CEO’s themselves say they’ll spend the tax cuts on? Good question. When the CEO’s of the Business Council’s 130+ member companies were asked in a secret Business Council of Australia survey to nominate one of four options as their preferred response to the company tax cut in Australia, only 17% nominated higher wages or more jobs. Over 80% selected either returning funds to shareholders, or more investment.
Secondly, if we look at what has actually happened in the United States after the implementation of Trump’s tax cuts we can see that it resulted in big benefits to rich shareholders through share buy-backs and dividend increases, and an increase in mergers and acquisitions that benefit corporate executives and make big business even bigger.
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-3-key-arguments-for-the-company-tax-cut-make-no-economic-sense-heres-why/
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But a $65 billion tax cut means a $65 billion decrease in our national budget and that has to be accounted for, either in cuts to expenditure (which really means government services like health, education and infrastructure) or increases in the budget deficit.
Quote:
Democrats want to impose a new tax on America’s wealthiest by taxing unrealized capital gains similar to other types of income— a major change to how those assets have been taxed historically.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced legislation on Wednesday requiring taxpayers with more than $1 billion in assets or more than $100 million in annual income for three consecutive years to pay taxes on unrealized capital gains.
“There are two tax codes in America,” Wyden said in a statement on Wednesday. “The first is mandatory for workers who pay taxes out of every paycheck. The second is voluntary for billionaires who defer paying taxes for years, if not indefinitely.”
The so-called “Billionaires Income Tax” would apply to around 700 taxpayers and raise “hundreds of billions of dollars,” according to the proposal, which comes as Democrats discuss ways to fund their reconciliation package over the next decade
https://www.google.com/amp/s/au.finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/democrats-unveil-billionaires-tax-on-unrealized-capital-gains-131232669.html
Here's an opinion piece from Fisher investments.
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Plus, there are two simple reasons capital gains taxes have preferred rates. One is incentivizing long-term investment, which drives job creation. The other is to account for inflation, which can offset a large chunk of long-term returns. Preferential rates help people avoid taking inflation-adjusted losses on their investments, which would skew the risk/reward calculation. https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/marketminder/the-many-problems-with-taxing-unrealized-capital-gains
And here's a report from the US Tax Policy Centre.
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Do lower taxes on capital gains spur economic growth? By reducing the disincentive to invest, a lower capital gains tax rate might encourage more investment, leading to higher economic growth. Many factors determine growth, but the tax rate on capital gains does not appear to be a major factor, as evidenced in figure 1, which shows the top tax rates on long-term capital gains along with real economic growth from 1954 to 2019.
Capital gains may arise from risky investments, and a lower capital gains tax rate might encourage such risk taking. Even without a tax preference, taxing gains while allowing full current deductions for losses on a symmetric basis would reduce risk by reducing after-tax variance of returns. However, deductibility of losses is limited, which limits the risk-reduction benefit of capital gains taxation for some taxpayers. Under current law, taxpayers can use capital losses to offset capital gains and, for noncorporate taxpayers, up to $3,000 of additional taxable income other than capital gains. Noncorporate taxpayers also can carry any remaining capital losses forward to future years indefinitely.
It is true that inflation causes part of almost any nominal capital gain. But inflation actually affects the returns on currently taxed assets (interest, dividends, rents, and royalties) more than it affects capital gains, which are taxed when an asset is sold.
BENEFICIARIES OF A LOWER TAX RATE
Critics are correct that low tax rates on capital gains and dividends accrue disproportionately to the wealthy. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates that in 2019, more than 75 percent of the tax benefit of the lower rates went to taxpayers with income over $1 million (table
Low tax rates on capital gains contribute to many tax shelters that undermine economic efficiency and growth. These shelters employ sophisticated financial techniques to convert ordinary income (such as wages and salaries) to capital gains. For top-bracket taxpayers, tax sheltering can save up to 17 cents per dollar of income sheltered. The resources that go into designing, implementing, and managing tax shelters could otherwise be used for productive purposes.
Finally, the low rate on capital gains complicates the tax system. A significant portion of tax law and regulations is devoted to policing the boundary between lightly taxed returns on capital assets and fully taxed ordinary income.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-effect-lower-tax-rate-capital-gains
Plenty of people that billionaires employ are on welfare.
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Millions of Americans work full time yet are still impoverished, their wages so low that they qualify for federal health care and food assistance programs even though many of them are employed by the biggest and most profitable U.S. companies.
Because those companies don’t pay their workers a living wage, taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for daily necessities those employees can’t afford to buy themselves. In short, corporate America is pawning off the cost of rock-bottom wages on taxpayers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-18/who-helps-pay-amazon-walmart-and-mcdonald-s-workers-you-do
It doesn't look like the countries that increased their minimum wage have collapsed yet, and a slow and measured increase appears to be best practice too.
Quote:
Many business leaders fear that any increase in the minimum wage will be passed on to consumers through price increases thereby slowing spending and economic growth, but that may not be the case.
New research shows that the pass-through effect on prices is fleeting and much smaller than previously thought.
In a new Upjohn Institute working paper, Daniel MacDonald and Eric Nilsson, of California State University, Bernardino, advance the literature on price effects of minimum wage increases.
Historically, minimum wage increases were large, one-shot changes imposed with little advance notice for businesses. But many recent state and city-level minimum wage increases have been scheduled to be implemented over time and often are indexed to some measure of price inflation. These small, scheduled minimum wage hikes seem to have smaller effects on prices than large, one-time increases.
By looking at changes in restaurant food pricing during the period of 1978–2015, MacDonald and Nilsson find that prices rose by just 0.36 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, which is only about half the size reported in previous studies. They also observe that small minimum wage increases do not lead to higher prices and may actually reduce prices. Furthermore, it is also possible that small minimum wage increases could lead to increased employment in low-wage labor markets.
While federal and state minimum wage increases appear to produce similar results, more research is needed to fully grasp the effects of city minimum-wage raises.
https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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Oz_Salvia
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: sudly]
#27576658 - 12/10/21 09:11 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Firstly, what do CEO’s themselves say they’ll spend the tax cuts on? Good question. When the CEO’s of the Business Council’s 130+ member companies were asked in a secret Business Council of Australia survey to nominate one of four options as their preferred response to the company tax cut in Australia, only 17% nominated higher wages or more jobs. Over 80% selected either returning funds to shareholders, or more investment.
Sounds good to me.
And where on the political spectrum are you?
I'd say centre-left as you have ALP-esque ideals. It's generally fashionable to the young to have these ideals; even to the point of being radical Communists because that's the student culture in all universities and always has been. Take for example this poster plastered up all over the Australian National University in the Nation's capital, Canberra. This one was back in 2018. I recall much the same sorts of posters in the 1980's. It's always the same shill of Marxism. *yawn*

I could be wrong on where you are on the spectrum but that's not important. While you're tilting at windmills you could put that effort into working another job and putting the money into the market. Yes, the quiet achiever. You won't beat this situation because the wealthy hold all the chips and therefore all the power, so best you join it. There is plenty out there for to get your hands on if you choose to.
Go and look at this thread which is over 16 years old. There are Leftists in there crying about the same stuff you have. Now had they ceased their belly aching and invested over the said years they'd have improved their lot.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4176792
There will be in the years ahead the same lamenting across these boards because these drug boards attract an element of victimhood and rather than get on with a different approach they want to complain. I'm not impugning I'm just saying it as I see it. I don't see this view in the Motley Fool forums (per subscription services). Sure, some will lament if a share they have has done poorly. However on the whole they're optimists and have confidence in themselves and are happy to share and discuss stocks worthy of attention.
Success is an attitude and poverty is a choice. Personally I gave away Left-wing thinking by age 15 or 16 knowing there's no such thing as a free lunch, nor is there in nature. Every calorie competed for in food webs and all under the pump of selection pressure at both intra and inter-species level.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Oz_Salvia]
#27581731 - 12/14/21 11:31 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Talking about taxes is a universal issue.
I mostly want accountability on govermnent finances including donations. When a corporation or individual makes a large donation to a politician or party, I would like to have decent transparency on that.
There's no harm in talking about change.
Saving money and investing is a good way to make money, and it takes a lot of dedication and patience, I get that, it's a way to get a foot up in the world.
I'm not a fan of bribery.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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Oz_Salvia
Conservative
Registered: 04/14/20
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Last seen: 2 years, 27 days
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Quote:
Stable Genius said: That's bullshit and you know it. It's the same lie Morrison used 
Quote:
Franking credits were originally introduced under the Keating government to eliminate double-taxation on company profits.
Shareholders who were paying income tax were given money back from the tax office to compensate them for the fact their dividends were being taxed twice.
The Howard government then extended the scheme so shareholders who were paying no income tax — mostly retirees — could also get a cash-back from the tax office.
This is the change Mr Shorten has promised to unwind if Labor wins the election.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/bill-shorten-franking-credits-scott-morrison-federal-election/11064898?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment
As for the rest of your post/s man you're just plain nasty.
Go smoke some weed and chill the fuck out 
So you're going to go by what the ABC says, eh. The Australian Bolshevik Commissars of misinformation.
The Howard government then extended the scheme so shareholders who were paying no income tax — mostly retirees — could also get a cash-back from the tax office.

I will now school you again (as I have in every post to you so far).
The truth is you can have a million dollar income or a zero dollar income and still get franked shares of value deposited into your bank account. Why is this a problem when the company paid tax?? It's not a magic pudding, actual wealth was created, tax paid, and you paid tax per being part of that company as a shareholder. Show me where it came out of the ATO's pocket and therefore came from your taxes, go on! Newz flash fer ya, it was never in the ATO's pocket! It was never yours. It was the shareholders who own it.
An ASX listed company pays a flat 30% which is a good deal less than Australian workers do in tax. That's not greed, that's opportunity, because less tax means you may be able go get your hands in on some action.
Now to keep this round let's say one has 10-thousand shares in a company paying 30% tax and just so happens they do franked dividends. The company pays their 30% tax and from profits they offer 10 cents as a franked dividend per share; yep you get a tidy $1,000 deposited to your bank account. All of it tax free because the company paid their 30% tax (this has to said again, and again, as you're struggling on this).
It's not hard to grasp.
Around one third of Australians directly own shares, the rest do per Super (which is mandatory per employment) and many SMSF. To change the rules as you want back to double-taxes is plain Communist, Shorten-short-change, bullshit. Ain't gonna happen and even the ALP has abandoned it; so you can get indignant, stamp your feet, pound your chest, strut up Swanson or Pitt St with your Che Guevara T-shirt and CEMFU flag, howling about how unfair it all is, but that won't change diddly shit. The tribe has spoken.
So yes, how about you chill out and accept this.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: Oz_Salvia]
#27592433 - 12/23/21 09:56 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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Oz_Salvia
Conservative
Registered: 04/14/20
Posts: 165
Last seen: 2 years, 27 days
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: sudly]
#27592463 - 12/23/21 10:36 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said:

Thanks on that post.
Shows the massive spend on old people who should have made provision to their future given they had decades to do so. Instead it's a terrible leaning on the young who have already been heavily burdened in COVID debt, ironically to save the old by locking up the country. That's the tragedy of our age. Yep, long after they have popped their clogs the young will be carrying the load. I see the end of the aged pension and their concessions.
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Oz_Salvia
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Last seen: 2 years, 27 days
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Yep, the Left decided to double down with none other than indigenous Greens senator Lidia Thorpe cheering on the indigenous mob of arson. I note that piece of garbage pulled her twitter post - too late, it was screen captured.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/online/greens-leader-adam-bandt-remains-silent-over-senator-lidia-thorpes-tweet/news-story/e03757cc367e10255998fd86c125a75b
Backlash over a Greens senator tweeting that the fire at Old Parliament House seemed like the “colonial system burning” has grown as police announced a taskforce to investigate the blaze.



Yep, loading up fuel against the door of this historic old building and cheering the arson. Have to wonder what Leftist icon, the late Whitlam, would have made of this - appalled no doubt. Custodial sentences and lengthy gaol times required.

And see this: the proof video of the fire being deliberately lit by the scumbag Lefties.
How's that ABC unicorns and rainbows video of yours working out, Stable Genius?
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Quote:
Stable Genius said: Q&A is supposed to be THE pinnacle of televised political and social debate in Australia.
Stan Grant is the bloody know all on everything and a koods type of social justice warrior, meaning he can't be told anything that doesn't fit his belief, is never wrong and just doesn't know when to stfu.
I didn't see that particular show but thanks for pointing it out, you've given me even more reason to loathe Stan Grant and I'll be seeing how I can make a complaint against him and the ABC.
I haven't checked out Sky News for a while and might see what their take on this is.
I get that social justice stuff gets way out of hand way too often and some people need to keep their shit in their pants imo, but! yes but.
Ukraine is a serious issue, a legitimate and real one we have all been observing, and it's a horror.
It's quite something to say,
Quote:
Believe it or not, there are a lot of Russians here and around the world that support what Putin is doing in the Ukraine, myself included.
However he came to that conclusion, that is where he arrived, and that is what he stated. It is something to enunciate support for the evident attrocities that are still happening.
But I do see a caveat that shines upon our media the mediocrity of their sycophantic stenography to the swamp.
America is just as bad, war crimes out the wazoo, hospitals bombed, innocent civilians killed in the thousands, first responders targeted, false flag operations, wars for oil, military industrial profiteering etc.
You cannot call out the attrocities present in Ukraine at the hands of Putin without calling out the attrocities present and historically at the hands of Biden, Obama, Trump, Bush etc.
War crimes are war crimes, and I find it ironic they make statements like there being no moral equivalence for Putins actions, and then on the other foot defending American drone strikes.
Quote:
Malcolm Fraser's criticism of drone operations 'ridiculous', says ex-Army drone pioneer
Malcom Fraser says Australians involved in US drone operations could be charged with crimes against humanity.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Phil Swinsburg says Mr Fraser's claims that Australian personnel serving at the Pine Gap surveillance base could find themselves charged with crimes against humanity are "far-fetched" and "ridiculous".
Mr Fraser, the Liberal PM between 1975 and 1983, had warned that Australians working at the US-run Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap – the intelligence-gathering base which reportedly now plays a key role in locating drone targets - did not have the same legal protection as their US counterparts.
"The purposes for which drones are used are going to be outlawed at some point by international agreement, and the Americans might believe that Americans involved in those programs are given legal cover under the War Powers Resolution passed after 9/11," he said.
"[It] gives totally unlimited power, no geographic limits, no time limits, using any means available or that might become available to an American president to do so.
"But that resolution gives no legal cover to Australians operating out of Pine Gap who are complicit in finding, identifying, locating the so-called target."
But Mr Swinsburg says that is not the case.
"To distil this down to an [Australian] corporal in Pine Gap being put on war crimes [charges] because of an intercept that he or she processed, and [which] is now somehow the executive authority for weapon release, is a little far-fetched, and shows the lack of regard Fraser holds [for] the general public in trying to create a situation when nothing exists," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-07/ex-army-drone-expert-phil-swinsburg-hits-out-at-malcolm-fraser/5433762
I also came across an interesting interview with Malcolm Fraser along the way.
Quote:
"When he was Prime minister Gough Whitlam made it clear that he had some reservations about US bases in Australia but they were if you'd like exacerbated or exaggerated by Jim Cairns who took to thinking about US president Nixon as being a murderer." - Malcolm Fraser
That seems to be about the only time in the Whitlam period when the United States sent a serious professional diplomat Marshall Green to their ambassador in Australia. It's often occurred to some of us who possibly have paranoid tendencies to suggest that the Americans were really worried about their bases being removed by a labour government and it could have had something to do with the demise of Gough Whitlam.
"Arthur Tang and Lance Barnard saved those bases for America there's no doubt about that and America knew that was going to happen. I've seen some things written about it in recent times which I suspect is a good deal of nonsense." - Malcolm Fraser
Let me take this one bit further, the United States does have a record of either being involved in or directly removing governments or governors that they didn't particularly like, maybe we could talk about Allende in Chile, we can talk about Mosaddegh in Iran, we can talk about many countries in central America with what happened there. We can also talk about in Japan where three Japanese prime ministers recently have wished to remove or modify the bases the Americans have in Okinawa and Katsuyama.
It seems to me the Americans had a very strong influence about that. Is there some element here that you would worry if Australia by some miracle decided to start to take your advice and begin to remove the bases from Australia?
"I think that conspiracy theories can go far too far, over Mosaddegh it was certainly BP in America, and Allende yes, but umm, you know, is the CIA going to rendition Malcolm Fraser? I don't think so. America expresses its view very strongly."- Malcolm Fraser
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,789
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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: SirTripAlot]
#27858120 - 07/11/22 12:17 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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If your sponsors know you have a position they don't like then yeah, the politician is at a disadvantage..
If you're trying to sell a car it surely would be disadvantageous to tell the customer the used car actually does need a new battery, a tightened parking break, replaced bushes and an new indicator relay.
If someone thought the voting public was their opponent then maybe their policies weren't supported by the public.
I mean I don't think legislative decision making is analagous to a poker game unless you're referring to someone being in it for themselves.
Legislatively, if I knew my policy was popular and would be supported by the majority then I would run on it, and make it the centre point of my campaign.
I think it's true a lot of politicians will speak out of both sides of their mouths while following the political winds of our bureaucratic overlords for rank careerism, rather than actually making a stand and believing in anything themselves.
At the end of it all it does pay for the individual politician to support their politically correct sponsors when the campaign finance systems allow it, I almost can't blame someone for taking advantage of it if it's there. Alas it is evident that those who do so, do not will to close the legislated loopholes that enable and allow them to do so.
Quote:
To beg a leprechaun to give up his rainbow for the drought he has caused in keeping the clouds above him.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (07/11/22 12:26 AM)
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twighead
mͯó



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Ahh refreshing I clicked on this thread to find some pages of Emmanuel Goldstein hate! Err I mean George Soros!

Actually... it was Rupert Murdoch, you were close!
Ah wait no that was who was supporting the Russian puppet before
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Stable Genius
Durka durka


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Re: The Australian Politics Thread [Re: twighead] 1
#27989584 - 10/09/22 05:57 AM (1 year, 3 months ago) |
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twighead
mͯó



Registered: 08/27/08
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
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Quote:
Stable Genius said:
Quote:
twighead said: shit like this is why China is lame af
Fucking insecure losers
It's a good thing they were a foreign reporter or they prob just would've ended up in a reeducation camp
Ukraine is preparing a law on full control over the media, as the last vestiges of press freedom disappear in Kiev
Looking forward to reading your outrage about this 
Idk man this is just my 2c, but if we had missiles hitting city hall over here and a flurry of propaganda mixed in with foreign and internal interference, I think it'd be damn hard to get a clear message out there, and in a full on military situation as is, I find it hard to personally come to a strong conclusion on what decisions are good or bad in the greater picture ey.

It also doesn't seem all too clear what the new legislation in a full contextual way, actually involves, like what exactly it bans, or what the 'new media standards' involve.
Quote:
A new draft media law voted on in the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday (30 August) could see the country take a step towards fulfilling conditions set out by Brussels for EU accession.
The draft law, ‘On Media’, passed with 233 votes in favour in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, in the first re-reading following revisions.
The bill was proposed by President Zelenskyy in November 2019 and was introduced to parliament later that year. In addition to regulating online media and major platforms, the bill also seeks to expand the power of the country’s media regulator, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting.
Media reform, particularly the alignment of Ukraine’s regulations with those of the EU, was one of the provisions included in Brussels’ recommendation of EU candidate status for the country earlier this summer.
However, throughout its drafting process the law has attracted criticism from press organisations within and beyond Ukraine for the potential power over the media that it would hand the government.
The vote on Tuesday saw a majority of lawmakers support the bill’s passage, following additions to the draft made by deputies in July. The changes, Ukraine’s Detector Media reports, mostly relate to the war but also clarify the definition of the “online media” that the legislation will cover.
The media reform process began with a decree signed by Zelenskyy in 2019, calling for the introduction of legislation to kickstart the process. The move, however, was met with opposition from Ukrainian journalists, many of whom expressed unease with the potential inclusion of defined “news standards”.
International media organisations have since voiced their concern over certain elements of the ensuing legislation.
In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged that the bill be rewritten, arguing that its expansion of the media regulator’s powers would threaten press freedom and that, while reform was needed, the law in its current state would instead mark a departure from EU standards.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), an association of journalists’ trade unions, also called for a revision of the draft text, saying it was joining the calls of its Ukrainian affiliate organisations, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) and the Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine.
“NUJU calls on the Ukrainian authorities to withdraw this bill and to draft a specific bill for the regulation of audiovisual media, in line with the EU directives”, said the organisation’s President, Sergiy Tomilenko.
“We are ready to dialogue with the authorities to draft a new media law in line with European legal standards.”
A group of Ukrainian media NGOs issued a similar call last month, urging the government to consult transparently with media professionals and organisations to formulate the law.
Improving Ukraine’s media landscape was one of the points set out by the European Commission in June in an opinion on the country’s EU membership application.
While media freedom has “improved significantly in recent years, especially thanks to online media” and a good balance is being struck between preservation of the media and measures to combat disinformation, the Commission said in the opinion, issues, such as the influence of oligarchs in the sector, remain.
Brussels also singled out the pending legislation, noting that alignment with its own audiovisual media law had yet to be completed, particularly regarding the media regulator’s role, media ownership transparency and ensuring equal market conditions.
“We welcome the plans to proceed with the new draft law ‘On Media’ in the Ukrainian parliament following today’s first reading vote,” an EU spokesperson told EURACTIV. “This is an important step on Ukraine’s path towards the EU and to address one of the priority reforms identified in the Commission’s Opinion on Ukraine’s EU membership application.”
“The law needs to ensure a competitive media market with clear rules for all, an independent regulator and alignment with EU Audio-Visual Media Services Directive,” the official added. “The Commission will assess the draft voted in the first reading and make further recommendations to Ukraine to ensure its alignment with EU legislation.”
The draft law will now reportedly be considered for a second reading by Ukrainian lawmakers within the next three weeks.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/media/news/ukraine-moves-forward-on-media-law-chasing-eu-requirements/
I get that media regulations are a slippery slope, but by jesus I struggle to think (because I don't), that we here in Australia have anything close to journalists standing infront of our TV screens, because they won't hold any politicians accountable, or any flames to their feet because they'd lose access and advertisements associated with their coverage and so the overton window stays and the boat remains unrocked alas.
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twighead
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Quote:
Stable Genius said: Why can't the U.S. export normal shit like fruit and vegetables?
The U-S to deploy nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the Northern Territory
Because a bomber lasts way longer on a shelf when it takes that long to ship it there

How efficient do you think it would be to buy an apple that was grown in the US that had to be shipped 9,400 miles?
Seems like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how such economies could efficiently function in relation to one another.
You act like we forced this on your country, when it was your country that is requesting it as a means of having some geopolitical strength in the region and not just being used by China as an economic plaything.
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