Tax cuts or tax cuts?

Apparently we really are going to the polls on 3 May. It is an interesting choice of date. So far very little has been said about the fact that this date is the Saturday of a "long weekend" in two parts of Downunder. I doubt it is going to be welcomed by those who had plans to get away. No doubt they are already looking up the pre-poll places and planning the route to them.

Another interesting thing is that there was no need for the PM to go to the Governor-General today. I suspect it is a very deliberate move to shield him and his party from any further attacks on the floor of the house. 

One of those things, perhaps the most important of all, is their so-called "tax cut" of $5 a week which was rapidly passed in both chambers of parliament. Now they can boast about it but the reality is that, with the help of tax bracket "creep", it is not a tax cut at all. It will not come into force for another eighteen months of so if the present government is re-elected. There is in fact no guarantee it will ever happen. If it does happen then there will be no effect on the economy at all. It will all be overridden by inflation and other factors.

On the other side there is the vow to cut the fuel excise in half - for twelve months. It is said that will put $14 a week back into the household budget. Perhaps it will. I don't know. Economists are saying it is a move which won't do much to help. 

It does however occur to me that the fuel excise might have a wider effect. As I am not an economist I cannot be sure about this. Is it possible that it will reduce costs in other areas as well. If it is cheaper to get things to the supermarket then will grocery prices rise less? Will inflation remain steady - or even come down?

I am confused by all this. Perhaps I need to return to university and study economics.

What I am not confused by at all is the growing need to address our taxation system. Those three layers of tax, local and state and federal, and the need to administer them add enormously to the cost of running the country. That unwieldy tax act of unbelievable size and complexity needs to be simplified.  Do this and we could save a great deal of money and time. We might end up with a much fairer and more reasonable system. We might even get some real tax cuts.