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☕️ What young people think about the tax cuts
It's Saturday. Here's your weekend deep dive.
Billi FitzSimons | Editor
February 10, 2024
Happy Saturday!
Parliament just finished its first sitting week of the year and there was one topic that dominated the news cycle: the tax cuts.
In all truthfulness, I understand if you’re a bit over hearing about these tax cuts. There’s been a lot of noise.
But before we finally move on from tax cuts, we wanted to understand one final thing: What do young people think about them?
First, remind me, what are the tax cuts?
There have been some changes to the initial Stage 3 tax cuts plan, which would have seen every dollar earned between $45,000 and $200,000 taxed at the same rate of 30%.
At the last election, the Labor Government promised it would follow through with implementing this tax plan (which was actually the brainchild of the previous Coalition Government). However, last month, the Government announced they were changing it due to “changing circumstances” (things like inflation, the pandemic and interest rate rises).
Under the new changes that were announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in January, people below $45,000 will also receive a tax cut, and a more staggered approach to tax brackets will remain. According to the PM, this will “provide bigger tax cuts for middle Australia to help with cost-of-living”.
The new tax breakdown will look like this:
0-$18,200: not taxed
$18,200 –$45,000: 16 cents for every dollar in this range
$45,000 – $135,000: 30 cents for every dollar in this range
$135,000 – $190,000: 37 cents for every dollar in this range
>$190,000: 45 cents for every dollar above this range.
The tax cuts will take effect from July this year (when the new financial year is starting). If you want to calculate what exactly it means for you, you can use our calculator here.
The debate
Following the Government’s changes to Stage 3, the Opposition was quick to point out that Labor had departed from its exact election commitment.
“I just think most Australians don’t want a prime minister who looks them in the eye, tells them one thing, and then does completely the opposite,” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said on The Today Show in January.
Despite that criticism, the Coalition ultimately did support the changes.
Dutton explained on ABC’s 7:30: "We support it on the basis, not of supporting his lie, but of supporting families who are hurting as a result of bad decisions [the Prime Minister] has made."
So, what do young Australians think?
The results
We surveyed nearly 2,000 young people about their thoughts on the Stage 3 tax cut changes.
Three out of four people agreed with the changes. About 20% disagreed, and 5% didn’t understand what the changes were.
Of the people who disagreed, a fifth of people said it was because they disagreed with how the Government changed its stance.
Another quarter said they disagreed because of the actual changes made by the Government.
About half of respondents who disagreed said it was both because the Government backflipped and because of the actual changes.
When we went a little deeper on the findings, it was unsurprising that support for the changes declined as salaries increased. For example, 85% of people on a salary between $45,000-135,000 agreed with the changes, while only 40% of people on salaries above $190,000 agreed.
How to interpret our results
TDA’s results are not nationally representative – meaning it’s not necessarily an accurate representation of what the Australian public as a whole thinks.
The results are dependent on who chooses to answer the questions. Our audience is disproportionately young, with 75% of readers below the age of 35.
However, surveys by other publications have found similar results. For example, a poll by The Guardian found that nearly 80% of respondents agreed the initial plan should be changed.
Thank you
Before you get on with your weekend, I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who participated in the poll!
We’ll have a lot more polls coming this year – so keep your eyes peeled. And let us know if you have any suggestions for what we should poll our audience about!
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