Reduce company tax to boost competition: FSC
The Financial Services Council (FSC) is calling for the company tax rate to be cut by eight percentage points to 22 per cent in order to boost growth, investment and employment.
The FSC has released a tax reform package, which it said would turn around Australia’s sagging competitiveness and flat productivity.
The FSC said reducing the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 22 per cent would bring it in line with rates in Asia, even as the company tax rate in the UK would be lowered to 18 per cent in 2020.
The average OECD reliance on company tax was eight per cent while it was more than 18 per cent in Australia.
It also said lower, flatter, indexed income tax rates would be paid for by a higher, broader GST.
It also proposed fully compensating all households for the increase in the GST to 15 per cent.
FSC director of policy, Andrew Bragg, said another part of the proposal was to index the personal income tax thresholds to make the package sustainable over the longer-term.
“Indexing the personal income tax thresholds means there is no more easy money for Canberra,” Bragg said.
“Indexing the tax thresholds also prevents compensation given to households through tax cuts from being whittled away by bracket creep.”
The FSC said slashing the company tax would attract capital into Australia for new enterprises and would create tens of thousands of jobs.
The lower company tax rate would increase gross domestic product by 1.9 per cent, investment by 3.7 per cent, employment by 0.1 per cent, and real wages by 1.4 per cent, the FSC said.
