General observations 

The case for reform of the taxation and social security systems, together with reform blueprints, were provided in the Henry Review released in May 2010. To the Henry Review reform proposals should be added a more comprehensive and higher rate GST, and the option of no-bars reform of the taxation of superannuation, both of which were excluded from the review’s terms of reference.

A comprehensive taxation reform package could involve any one of, or a combination of, the following:


	A comprehensive income tax base which removes current exemptions, such as the concessions for remuneration taken as fringe benefits and superannuation, and a simple progressive tax rate schedule which is automatically indexed for inflation;
	Greater neutrality of the effective tax rates on different saving and investment choice options, and a low rate on the taxation of capital income to reflect the relatively high elasticity of supply of capital to Australia;
	Increased taxation revenue from comprehensive tax bases on the economic rent earned on land, mineral and energy deposits (to replace current royalties), and other natural resources;
	Greater revenue from a comprehensive GST base along the NZ model, and at a higher tax rate;
	Reform of special taxes on selected products to correct market failures associated with motor vehicles, alcohol, and carbon and other forms of pollution;
	Remove all state stamp duties; and
	Simplify the social security system as proposed by the Henry Review

John Freebairn

English

Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO)

   
 
 
 
Taxation and social security system reform 
 
 
John Freebairn 
University of Melbourne  
 
 
CEDA Council on Economic Policy (CCEP) 
Sydney, 18 March, 2013 
 
 
 A. General observations 
The case for reform of the taxation and social security systems, together with reform 
blueprints, were provided in the Henry Review released in May 2010. To the Henry 
Review reform proposals should be added a more comprehensive and higher rate 
GST, and the option of no-bars reform of the taxation of superannuation, both of 
which were excluded from the review’s terms of reference. 
A comprehensive taxation reform package could involve any one of, or a combination 
of, the following:  
 A comprehensive income tax base which removes current exemptions, such as 
the concessions for remuneration taken as fringe benefits and superannuation, 
and a simple progressive tax rate schedule which is automatically indexed for 
inflation; 
 Greater neutrality of the effective tax rates on different saving and investment 
choice options, and a low rate on the taxation of capital income to reflect the 
relatively high elasticity of supply of capital to Australia;  
 Increased taxation revenue from comprehensive tax bases on the economic 
rent earned on land, mineral and energy deposits (to replace current royalties), 
and other natural resources;  
 Greater revenue from a comprehensive GST base along the NZ model, and at a 
higher tax rate;  
 Reform of special taxes on selected products to correct market failures 
associated with motor vehicles, alcohol, and carbon and other forms of 
pollution;  
 Remove all state stamp duties; and  
 Simplify the social security system as proposed by the Henry Review. 
 
 B. A larger GST in a tax mix change 
 (A condensed version of a public lecture presented on 2 October 2012) 
Arguments for increasing the revenue collected from a goods and services tax (GST) with a 
more comprehensive tax base and a higher tax rate to fund reductions in more distorting 
 state stamp duties and income tax are explored. Most of the analysis is for reform packages 
which approximately are in aggregate revenue neutral and distribution neutral. Reform of the 
GST was excluded from the terms of reference for the Henry Review (2010) of taxation, and 
the two main political parties at the federal level state that reform of the GST is not on their 
agendas. On the other hand, large potential gains for national productivity are available with a 
shift of the mix of taxes from those with relatively high distortion costs to the GST with a 
much lower distortion cost (see, for example, Daley, 2012). 
 
The current GST 
The GST introduced in 2000 is Australia’s broad based consumption tax. It has a destination 
tax base which exempts exports and taxes imports. This tax base is relatively price 
non-responsive, or inelastic, and this property underlies the low distortion costs of the GST. 
The GST applies to about 60 per cent of a comprehensive consumption tax base. Exempt 
products include basic food, health, education, child care, water and imports valued at less 
than $1000, and the input taxation of financial services provides concessional treatment for 
households (but over-taxation for businesses) (Table 1). 
A flat GST rate of 10 per cent is applied. In 2009-10, GST revenue was $46.4 billion, or 13 per 
cent of all taxation revenue. 
Formally, the GST is collected by the Commonwealth government. The revenue then is 
redistributed to the states (and territories) as untied grants. The pattern of distribution across 
the states is based on principles of horizontal fiscal equalisation (HFE). HFE seeks to provide 
each state with a comparable ability to provide services to their constituents taking into 
consideration differences in their ability to collect own-source tax revenues and differences in 
the costs of providing services. 
There is a general consensus that while business pay the GST to government, they then pass 
forward the extra costs to households in higher prices. That is, households pay the final or 
economic incidence. Given that consumption as a share of income tends to fall with income, 
the GST by itself has a regressive incidence. However, tax reform packages should be 
assessed in terms of the final incidence of the aggregate of all taxes. 
 
 
 
 Table 1: GST Base Exemptions and Revenue Loss ($ billion in 2010-11) 
Items Exempt Revenue Cost 
Food 
Water, sewage and drainage 
Health 
Education 
Child care 
Financial services 
Imports 
 
Total 
5.9 
0.7 
3.8 
2.6 
0.6 
3.2 
1.2 
 
18.3 
Source: The Treasury, Tax Expenditure Statement, 2012, Commonwealth of Australia, 
Canberra 
 
A broader GST tax base 
The experience of NZ, and for arguments articulated in the Mirrlees Review (2010 and 2011) 
for the UK, recommend greater efficiency and simplicity with a comprehensive consumption 
base for the GST with removal of the current exemptions listed in Table 1. Restoring 
distributional equity, as represented by the status quo, requires recycling much of the extra 
GST revenue to governments and households, and changes will be sought for federal-state 
financial relations.  
Consider efficiency and simplicity arguments for a NZ type comprehensive GST base. 
Distortions to household purchase decisions across different products will be removed. There 
is no compelling market failure argument, or equity argument, for a GST on the necessity 
clothing but not food, or on the utility electricity but not water. Complexity is involved for GST 
exempt providers of health and education and the GST treatment of business services, 
cleaning and other GST taxable activities they might provide. A comprehensive base provides 
for greater transparency and neutrality of tax treatment across government, NGO-non-profit 
and private-for-profit providers of health, education and child care services. Exemptions in 
general, and grey lines between exempt and non-exempt goods and services, invite costly 
and wasteful to society rent seeking lobbying activities. 
At the time of the introduction of the GST, key reasons for the exemptions of what are 
considered necessities of life and higher shares of expenditures for those on low incomes 
 were the regressive effects of a GST. These concerns are real and supported by available 
data. However, in the context of the total tax system, exempting some “necessity of life” 
items from the GST is a very blunt and ineffective way of meeting society equity goals when 
compared with a progressive income tax and means tested social security system. For 
example, while the better-off spend a smaller share of their income on food than those on 
lower incomes, the percentage difference is not large, and more importantly, the better-off 
spend twice as many dollars per week on food (Table 2). To maintain the current redistributive 
effects of the tax system as an aggregate, some of the revenue windfall of removal of current 
exemptions for food, health, water, and so on will need to be recycled in a progressive 
fashion to households via increases in social security rates and reductions in marginal income 
tax rates. 
Table 2: Expenditure on Food and Health by Households by Income Quintile 
 Bottom 20% Middle 20% Top 20% 
Food and 
non-alcoholic 
beverages 
  $/week 
  % of total outlays  
 
 
127 
19.4 
 
 
213 
17.6 
 
 
281 
14.5 
Medical and health 
  $/week 
  % of total outlays 
 
37 
5.7 
 
61 
5.0 
 
98 
5.1 
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Catalogue No 6530.0. 
In the cases of health, education and child care, governments at both the federal and state 
levels fund a proportion, but not all, of these services for reasons of external benefits and 
equity. Bringing these services into the GST net for the efficiency and simplicity reasons 
noted above will require a similar proportion of the extra GST revenue to be recycled to the 
two tiers of government. Importantly, these subsidies will be more transparent, direct and 
better targeted at meeting the correction of external benefits and equity of opportunity 
reasons for government intervention.  
 
A higher GST rate 
Another set of reform package options is to raise the current GST rate of 10 per cent to, say, 
12.5 or 15 per cent, either on the current GST base or on a more comprehensive base, and to 
 use the revenue gained to replace or reduce other more distorting taxes. Relative high 
distorting taxes to be replaced (or reduced) include the state stamp duties on insurance and 
property transfers, and federal income taxation. This reform idea is similar to the philosophy 
behind the introduction of the GST in Australia in 2000, the rate increases in NZ and the UK in 
2010, and increases in VAT rates in other countries. 
Table 3 provides a list of the taxes high on the list to be replaced, or reduced, with the 
revenue from a higher rate GST. Details are given of the revenue collected in 2009-10 and of 
the Henry Review (2010) estimates of the marginal efficiency costs of the different taxes. An 
increase in the GST rate by one percentage point would generate about $4.6 billion a year on 
the current base, and $5.5 billion on a comprehensive base. Taxation involves a transfer of 
revenue (and ultimately of labour and other resources) from the private sector to the public 
sector. But also, taxation changes decisions in the private sector, such as shifting from 
market employment which is income taxed to leisure and home work which are not taxed. 
The changed decisions involve a loss of private sector welfare greater than the dollar for 
dollar transfer. The above one dollar transfer loss to the private sector is referred to as the 
marginal efficiency cost of the tax. For example, in Table 3, the last dollar of stamp duty on 
insurance involves a total loss of welfare to the private sector of $1.31, with $1 being a 
transfer to government and 31 cents being the marginal efficiency cost. 
Table 3: Revenue and Efficiency Costs of Selected Taxes 
Tax Revenue, 2009-10 
($ billion) 
Marginal Efficiency Cost 
(cents/$ tax revenue) 
State taxes: 
  Stamp duty on insurance 
  Conveyance duty on 
property 
 
4.6 
12.3 
 
 
31 
74-85 
Commonwealth taxes: 
  GST 
  Personal income 
  Corporate income 
 
46.6 
124.8 
62.2 
 
12 
24 
37 
Sources: Revenue from ABS, Catalogue No 5506.0; marginal efficiency cost from Henry 
Review, 2010, page 13. 
Differences in the marginal efficiency cost of different taxes provide one measure of the 
efficiency benefits, or increases in national productivity, of increasing the GST rate to fund 
reductions of more distorting taxes. For example, using the Henry Review (2010) numbers in 
 Table 3, another dollar of GST to replace a dollar of stamp duty on insurance involves an 
additional cost of 12 cents but saves a cost of 31 cents for a net gain of 19 cents per dollar 
tax mix change. Of course, there are legitimate arguments about the estimated magnitudes of 
the efficiency costs of different taxes (including my concerns with the Henry Review 
numbers). However, few doubt the ranking of these costs, and then that a tax mix change 
involving a larger GST to replace taxes listed in Table 3 offers very large gains in national 
productivity. 
 
A larger GST to replace state stamp duties 
State stamp duties on insurance and on the conveyance of property are among the most 
distorting taxes, and their removal would bring important gains in simplicity; stamp duties on 
motor vehicles also deserve removal, but as argued by the Henry Review (2010) as part of a 
separate tax reform package for the taxation of motor vehicles for road funding, pollution and 
congestion. In the case of conveyance duty, a reform package would involve a broader base 
and higher rate land tax, roughly to fund the unimproved land value component, and a higher 
GST to fund the improvements component of property value transfers. 
Stamp duties are a form of indirect tax, similar to the GST, in terms of an additional cost and 
with much of the extra cost past forward to buyers as higher prices. But, stamp duties fall on 
business activities with extra distortions relative to a GST with its final incidence on household 
consumption. Conveyance duty as a transaction tax also reduces transfers of ownership of 
property from less productive to more productive owners and uses. There is no market failure 
reason to impose a higher indirect tax burden of stamp duty plus GST on insurance relative to 
the flat GST burden on most other products. These additional distortions lie behind the higher 
marginal efficiency cost of stamp duties relative to the GST shown in Table 3. 
A larger GST to replace stamp duties tax reform package, as a change in the composition of 
indirect taxation, will have a negligible effect on the aggregate cost of living. However, in the 
short run, some winners and losers seem inevitable, but these will decline over time and with 
net gains in productivity.  
Aggregate revenue neutrality across the different government jurisdictions could be 
maintained by a corresponding reduction in commonwealth special purpose payments. The 
states would benefit from more stable revenues. 
 
 A larger GST to replace payroll tax 
The arguments for replacing state payroll taxes with a larger GST, or other taxes for that 
matter, are not compelling. The long run effects of a comprehensive GST (which taxes income 
consumed and exempts income saved) and a comprehensive payroll tax (which taxes labour 
income and exempts capital income or the return on income saved), both with flat rates of 
tax, are similar. Both have a long run incidence on employees and not employers; payroll tax 
reduces the market wage, and the GST reduces what can be purchased with take-home 
wages. As argue in the Henry Review, with a highly elastic supply of capital relative to labour, 
shifting the tax mix from capital to labour provides for greater efficiency (optimal tax 
literature), and most of the benefits go to labour as higher market wages (because of more 
investment per worker). 
There are important short term and transition differences with mixed efficiency and equity 
effects which can be argued to favour the GST over payroll, and vice-versa. 
Reality is that both the GST and payroll taxes, as currently administered, have narrow bases, 
coincidently each about 60% of their potential. 
In terms of commonwealth-state financial relations, payroll tax (along with land tax) is an 
important state tax. Reform would be better addressed to broadening the payroll tax base 
than its removal. Here, one should argue that while less than 10% of employers pay payroll 
tax, about 50% of employees are directly affected, and the costs are in part passed on to 
employees of small and medium firms not subject to payroll tax. 
 
A larger GST to reduce income taxation 
A tax reform package involving a larger GST to fund reductions in income taxation would 
raise national productivity. At the same time, with careful design the package can be 
approximately aggregate revenue neutral, revenue neutral between the commonwealth and 
the states, and roughly distributional neutral across broad demographic and income 
categories. Of course, these later constraints could be relaxed. 
The efficiency case for replacing an income tax with a broad based consumption tax is as 
follows. Both taxes fall on labour market decisions to join the workforce, to invest in skills, 
and on hours of work. For a given market wage, income taxation reduces disposable income, 
while the GST (and indirect taxes more generally which are passed on as higher prices to 
households) reduce the quantity of goods and services which can be purchased from the 
 disposable income. So, labour market distortions are similar with a revenue and equity neutral 
larger GST and smaller income tax mix change. 
By contrast, while income taxation falls on capital income as well as labour income, albeit as 
a hybrid mess of different tax rates (Henry Review, 2010), and distorts both the aggregate 
levels of saving and investment and the composition of different saving and investment 
options, such as housing, business plant and equipment, and superannuation, the GST with 
its consumption base lowers the tax burden on saving and investment. In the context of 
Australia as a net capital importer and a small open economy, the price sensitivity or elasticity 
of the supply of capital, and especially from non-residents, is high, and much higher than for 
labour. As argued in more detail in the Henry Review (2010), the Mirrlees Review (2010 and 
2011) and the NZ Tax Working Group (2010), given these differences in factor supply 
elasticities, a GST for income tax mix change in time results in an increase in capital inflow, a 
larger capital stock (and associated better technology), higher labour productivity, and 
increases in market wages. Lower, but still positive income tax rates reduce the dispersion of 
effective tax rates on different saving and investment choice options, which, in turn, reduces 
tax distortions to the mix of the larger capital stock and increases productivity. 
For households, the higher average cost of living with a larger GST would be offset with a 
recycling of the additional GST revenue as higher social security rates and lower marginal 
income tax rates. The income tax rate schedule would become more progressive. In the 
longer run, the productivity gains of a GST for income tax mix change provide a net gain in 
national income. Under an aggregate revenue constraint, while the current distribution of the 
aggregate tax burden can be maintained for households across broad demographic and 
income groups, in a particular year there will be some losers, as well as winners, within each 
group. 
The first round increase in GST revenue for the states and fall in income tax revenue (and 
increase in social security outlays) for the commonwealth changes commonwealth-state 
financial relations. The current balance could be restored with a commensurate reduction of 
commonwealth special purpose payments to the states. 
 References 
Daley, J. (2012), Game-Changes: Economic Reform Priorities for Australia, Grattan Institute 
Report 2012-5, June, Melbourne. 
Henry, K., Harmer, J., Piggott, J., Ridout, H. and Smith, G. (Henry Review) (2010) Australia’s 
Future Tax System: Final Report to the Treasurer, Treasury, Canberra. 
Mirrlees, J. et al. (2010) Dimensions of Tax Design: The Mirrlees Review, Institute of Fiscal 
Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 
Mirrlees, J. et al (2011) Dimensions of Tax Design, Institute of Fiscal Studies, Oxford 
University Press, Oxford. 
Tax Working Group (2010) A Tax System for New Zealand’s Future, Report of the Victoria 
University of Wellington Tax Working Group, Wellington. 
 
 
 


(Henry Review)

A Tax System for New Zealand’s Future,

Dimensions of Tax Design: The Mirrlees Review, Institute of Fiscal Studies,

et al (2011) Dimensions of Tax Design, Institute of Fiscal Studies,

Game-Changes: Economic Reform Priorities

Taxation and social security system reform

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