Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says Australia’s top 47 per cent income tax rate is encouraging people to minimise tax by splitting income through trusts and companies, as former prime minister Paul Keating argues a rate above 39 per cent is “confiscatory”.

The observations about the government’s high dependence on income tax paid by wage and salary earners from two of Australia’s tax system veterans underlines the need to shift to other taxes to reduce the overreliance on working-age taxpayers, experts said.