Your tax return

may be a disappointment this year, a big disappointment for some of you.

During the pandemic the federal government put a number of measures in place. Among them were certain temporary tax measures which meant that some people were getting as much as $1500 extra on their returns.  They have now ceased. This was always intended to be what would happen. 

So why are people screeching and screaming? There was plenty of warning. They were told and they were told again, more than once.

One of my neighbours works in the Taxation Office. He works in the "fraud" area. I suspect it is the big fraud area not the little fiddles that so many people try to get away with because they resent paying tax. 

The Senior Cat did not resent paying tax but he did resent paying such a lot of tax. He was one of the people required to be on the "old" superannuation scheme. It was in many ways a very generous scheme. You paid in a set portion of your salary. The government paid in an equal amount. You were taxed on your entire salary, not just the portion you had left after paying superannuation. It still worked to your advantage if you stayed in the system long enough. At the end of it you had a guaranteed, index linked pension for life. When you died your partner (if you were married) was eligible for two-thirds of what you were getting. It was, for most people, a very good deal. It represented security. That system has long since gone. It could not be sustained.

But the Senior Cat had spent most of his teaching career in places, some of them very remote, where there were problems. He was sent as a "trouble shooter". He would sort out issues and set up a program or two and then be sent on to yet another location to do the same. Unlike most teachers who came back to the city after some years he stayed in these more remote locations. There was no chance to buy a house or develop social contacts and activities. His children had to board in the city simply because it was the only way they could finish their education. He accepted all that.

Come tax return time however he would worry himself almost sick that he might make a mistake on his return. Eventually he was persuaded to use a specialist tax accountant. He was fortunate in being directed to someone who was both able and honest. He discovered there were things he could have claimed for many years but had been wrongly informed about - wrongly informed by Tax Office employees who simply didn't know how to do the job. Of course he never received a return for all that extra tax he paid.

There is a reason for that. Our taxation legislation is perhaps the most complex in the world. It is printed in two large volumes. The government of the day simply adds something to it when someone finds a loophole or how to exploit the subsection of a subsection of a subsection. When I was at law school it was a major area of study and the lecturers concerned admitted that "something needs to be done" but, all these years later, nothing has been done. 

The last tax return the Senior Cat worried about was the one Middle Cat and I did for him. We went to see the accountant instead of him. The Senior Cat paid all his tax as he had done all his life but he still muttered furiously for him, "Blood sucking leeches. I wouldn't mind if they didn't waste so much of it." I imagine a lot of people feel the same way.