Page 4619 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
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I think that it is not an unfair tax. It does not impose an unfair burden on anybody. To suggest that, somehow, there is a relationship between the BAD tax, that has been forgone on the one hand, and the FID tax on the other, is quite misleading. I do not believe that the imposition of this addition - and it is an addition - to the FID tax is at all unreasonable.
MR STEVENSON (8.18): Taxes come in many different forms and under many different names. It would seem that governments are hell-bent to increase the money they collect from the people who produce it in the first place. What all taxes do is basically increase government spending and subsequently decrease the spending of the people who actually work for and earn the money, the people who make Australia what it is.
This tax should never have been introduced by the Federal Government. It was called a tax on financial institutions, but immediately it was passed on and the financial institutions told the public that it was a tax on them. Basically, it was. Most people, indeed, think it is. They do not even realise that it was a financial institutions duty; they think it was another tax put on people.
What is it going to do? Because of government caused inflation - which could well be called the hidden tax - people basically have to invest their money in something or they will lose it just by having it sit at home. So they, largely, put it in financial institutions. This particular tax, and others of a similar nature, penalise people for putting money in a financial institution.
The Chief Minister made what I believe to be a rather incredible statement when he said that the more affluent of us will not have a problem with this. In other words, the people who make the greater number of transactions will be the more affluent.
Mr Kaine: I did not say that we would have no trouble with it; I just said that the burden would fall more heavily on those people.
MR STEVENSON: If one talks to some of the business people around this town, particularly those businesses that are under tremendous hardship because of, firstly, financial institution duties being levied by the banks and others - these matters have been brought along to me because they have - - -
Mr Duby: And BAD tax.
MR STEVENSON: I agree, they are all bad taxes.
Mr Duby: And BAD tax.
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