Interesting:
Tax slug on poor singles
Elizabeth Colman
January 14, 2006/the Australian
A NATIONAL underclass of single low-income earners will pay for Peter Costello's tax relief for families at the May budget as poor and middle-income workers face a growing tax burden despite the budget surplus windfall.
Families earning up to $50,000 a year, who pay no net tax after receiving family benefits, have again been earmarked for federal government help in the form of tax relief and other family assistance payments.
But research commissioned by the Opposition shows a single worker on $30,000 will pay $9720 total tax in the next two years, while a family earning $53,000 effectively pays nothing.
A week after the Treasurer pledged to give a "helping hand" to families earning between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, The Weekend Australian can reveal single and childless taxpayers in the same and lower income-tax brackets face a rising tax burden in the next two years as wage rises to match inflation increase their tax bill or push them into higher tax brackets.
Labourers, hairdressers, cleaners and clerks - among other low-income workers - will pay up to $45 a week more tax by 2008 through so-called bracket creep alone, without including any real wage increases.
A single worker or childless couple on $50,000 a year will pay $50 a week more tax in the next two years through bracket creep, research commissioned by Labor MP Craig Emerson from the Parliamentary Library shows.
Younger, poorer singles earning less than $52,000 a year - a group that traditionally lacks a tertiary degree and does not own a home or have children - have received minimal tax relief since 2000. ... <cont>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17818168%255E601,00.html
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