Billionaires in Australia could soon face a new wealth tax as the Greens announced their latest plan to tax big corporations to pay for essential services and tackle the cost of living crisis.
Under the proposal from the Greens, Australia’s 150 billionaires would pay an annual 10% tax on their net wealth with a 10% limit on capital flight in any year.
Effectively, curbing the ability of some of the country's richest people to shift their wealth offshore to escape the tax.
“There has been an obscene accumulation of wealth in this country in recent years. A billionaires’ tax will start to turn that around and help everyday Australians,” said Nick McKim, an Australian Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson.
According to Greens-commissioned costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), the party says the plan is expected to raise A$23 billion over the forward estimates and $50 billion over the decade.
“It’s time we turned the tables and made billionaires pay their fair share to fund the services people need,” said party leader Adam Bandt.
This comes as the latest pledge to voters by way of a series of “Robin Hood reforms” from the Greens ahead of this year’s federal election.
A new tax on wealth above $1 billion, will be a key demand from the Greens if Labor is reduced to minority government after the federal election.
“With a minority Government, the Greens can keep Peter Dutton out and tax billionaires to fund dental into Medicare, seeing the GP for free and real action on the housing and climate crisis,” said Bandt.
In a statement, The Greens revealed a recent Oxfam Australia report showed Australian billionaires on average made $67,000 per hour last year, over 1,300 times the hourly wage of the average Australian.
This is why the Greens have taken this approach to propose other policy reforms including getting dental into Medicare, making it free to see the GP and 50c public transport fares.
The proposed reform has faced backlash from the major parties, labelled as “economic sabotage” and a “fairytale”.
In a post on X this morning Bandt said, “Australian billionaire backers donated over $2 million to major political parties last financial year. But with a minority government on the way, this is our chance to break their grip over our democracy.”
The party will continue to work to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament and remains optimistic about gaining seats in the election despite the disappointing results of the Prahan byelection.
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