Oxfam is calling on the Australian Government to rapidly and radically reduce the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society by fixing the broken tax system. This should include:
- Immediately scrapping the stage-three tax cuts, which will deepen inequality, increase inflation and fail to respond to the current challenges of the cost-of-living crisis for low and middle-income households.
- Better taxing wealth, including implementing a progressive wealth tax of 2-5% on Australian multi-millionaires and billionaires, which could generate $32.36 billion dollars each year. With this tax revenue, Australia could simultaneously increase the aid budget to meet the rate development experts believe is fair for a country of our size and build over 75,000 houses annually to address the housing crisis in Australia.
- Implementing a permanent windfall profits tax on big corporations, so that when crises hit, corporations can’t profiteer as they did during the pandemic. Oxfam research in July 2023 revealed 722 mega-corporations raked in $1.5 trillion a year in windfall profits in 2021 and 2022 globally. Here in Australia, many corporations landed superprofits, including Woolworths, Santos and Woodside.
- Ending fossil fuel subsidies, which mostly benefit big corporations making super profits. In 2022-23, the government provided $11.1 billion in fossil fuel subsidies – money far better spent on tackling the climate crisis.
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