Polling from The Australia Institute (TAI) suggests the Government is backing a loser in its attempts to give big business a $65 billion tax cut.
The TAI polling showed 58 per cent of respondents opposed the government plan, while only 25 per cent supported the move to cut the tax rate for large companies.
In fact, when asked if company tax rates should go up or down, more people supported increasing the company tax rate than decreasing it.
The sentiment ran across party lines with a majority of coalition voters also opposed to the tax cuts.
The polling also showed 65 per cent support for funding public services as a better way to support employment and economic growth.
TAI’s Executive Director Ben Oquist said the economic case for company tax cuts was poor.
“Research shows that there is no correlation between lower company tax rates, employment or economic growth,” Mr Oquist said.
“A multi-billion dollar company tax cut represents an enormous hit to the budget, and it has to come from somewhere. It means either racking up a much bigger deficit or cutting back on critical investments like education, hospitals and infrastructure or likely both.
“The polling continues to show that the politics of company tax cuts are almost as bad as the economics, with support in the Australian public for the government’s policy sinking to new lows,” Mr Oquist said.
“A recent report by Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, David Richardson, analysed data on tax rates from Australia and OECD countries, finding cutting company tax rates did not correlate with economic growth.
“The research did, however, find that OECD countries with lower company tax rates have lower standards of living – measured as purchasing power of GDP per capita – and that as corporate and company taxes have been lowered in other countries, there has been a rise in average unemployment rates and decline in wages and mixed income.”
What do you think? Do you support the Government’s plan to cut the company tax rate for big business? Would you prefer to see the $65 billion spent on hospitals, infrastructure and education?
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