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Topic History of: those Oz election results
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
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hedda |
crikey...better put than I could ever.. |
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OldCynic |
For those who cannot understand Hedda's rant about franking credits, let me explain.
An Australian company makes a profit and pays tax on that profit
The company pays a dividend out of the profit remaining
The shareholders receive the dividend.
If the shareholders were to be taxed on that dividend, then that money would have been taxed TWICE ie double taxation.
To avoid that, the Tax Office has the company issue "franking credits" essentially a piece of paper that says "$X already paid", and the shareholder can use that to reduce his/her tax bill at year end.
The row that blew up was in relation to dividends received by pension funds.
As an Australian, you can either set up your own pension fund, or direct contributions to one of the public pension funds.
The Labor party manifesto said "If you have your superannuation contributions in an industry (public) fund, then there is no change, but if you have your contributions in your own fund, then you can only use these credits to cancel out any tax for which you are liable"
That is a real problem for self-funded retirees who have put their pension fund's investments into shares of companies that pay out a lot of their profit as dividends with attached franking credits. If they have no other - taxable - source of income, then the credits are worthless, and they won't get a tax refund any more.
Conversely, a taxpayer who had invested the same amount, over the years, into an industry fund WOULD get the benefit of the franking credits.
To compound the shortcomings of this policy, the shadow chancellor said "This is our policy, if you don't like it, don't vote for us." Hmm, a little unwise, eh?
Anyway for Australia excluding Queensland, Labour actually won a majority of seats.
In Queensland they were hammered because the (Labor) State Government has been delaying for YEARS approval of a Development Application to build a big new coal mine. The Labor Party #2 tried to emulate Hillary Clinton. She didn't call mine supporters "a bunch of deplorables" but she told miners and prospective miners that they needed to forget about coal and find themselves some other jobs. Whoops ! There are no other jobs. Hence the Labor Party ended up with 5 out of 26 seats and that is why the Prime Minister today is ScoMo, not "Shifty" Shorten |
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hedda |
following a demand from our Leader (JK)
highly depressing for me as the incredibly boring Scott Morrison who goes to one of those Hillsong type Churches where they yell in tongues and handle snakes, remains as PM.
On the positive side the "left"..Labor & The Greens combined vote was greater than the right- the Liberals & National Party (a party for farmers and small towns) but the right got more seats.
However all is not lost..with a government still only having a small majority of 5 seats and in the very important Senate where all legislation succeeds or fails, doubtful they will have a majority and the "left" may control.
## The crazies were booted from the Senate including ghastly & peediofile obsessed radio shock jock Derryn Hinch..once married to actress Jackie Weaver.
Big problems though for PM Morrison..annoyingly called ScoMo.. as one thing fought over in the campaigns was something called "Franking Credits" where those with at least $1Million in Superannuation get a handout from the government of up to $30,000 a year as some convoluted notion it's paying back tax to them which they didn't pay in the first place.
This was what did it in for Labor in Queensland which is riddled with right-wing pensioners. I hate Queensland and have vowed never to go there again..it's stunningly beautiful with amazing weather but the people !!! Think Alabama !
Now all pensioners (me) will be demanding a Franking Credt Free Money "tax pay back" ..this was introduced by another right wing government about 15 years ago and cost about $500M at the time..next year's bill will be about $11Billion..
don't expect much drama though and the great benefit is elections must be held every 3 years (or even less) which means a government does all it's dirty work in the first year, becomes mild in the second and coasts along trying not to frighten the horses and the last year is spent electioneering and giving away money to all and sundry. |
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