Tax cuts: Malcolm Turnbull’s $144 billion tax relief package passes Parliament
WATCH QT LIVE: MALCOLM Turnbull has said his incoming tax cuts are a win for all Australians, after his $144 billion package passed Parliament today. This is how it affects you.
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MILLIONS of Australians will get a tax cut after Malcolm Turnbull’s $144 billion seven-year tax relief package passed Parliament today.
In a massive win for the Prime Minister, clinched by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s support, the Senate passed the tax cuts 37 votes to 33 just before midday.
While the tax cuts start this year, they will deliver a rebate of up to $530 a year for low and middle income earners from July 1 next year.
The tax break begins at $200 a year for those in the lowest tax bracket and rises to $530 a year for those earning up to $90,000 under stage one of the plan.
Before Question Time today, the Prime Minister said the tax cuts were a “massive win for hardworking Australian families”.
“Our plan is not about creating winners and losers,” Mr Turnbull said.
“It wasn’t designed to pit Australians against each other.
“We are not putting up taxes on some Australians to pay for tax relief for other Australians.
“This is a plan that all Australians share in and will benefit from. It is a plan where all working Australians win.
“Your income is your money. You earned it. You deserve to keep more of it.”
“It is fair, it rewards and encourages enterprise, it encourages and enables aspiration. That is what this is all about.”
Treasurer Scott Morrison said the plan was fair, despite Labor’s criticisms, given higher income earners would continue to pay the bulk of the nation’s tax.
MORE: Turnbull and Shorten trade vicious insults over tax cuts
Stage two of the plan will lift the ceiling of the 32.5 per cent tax bracket from $87,000 to $90,000, delivering an immediate tax cut of up to $135 for about three million workers from July 1 this year.
The ceiling of that bracket will then rise again to $120,000 from July 1, 2022, delivering tax breaks of up to $1350 for about 1.8 million taxpayers, and the 19 per cent tax bracket ceiling will lift from $37,000 to $41,000.
About 1.8 million higher income earners will get a tax cut under stage three of the plan in 2024, which abolishes the 37 per cent tax bracket entirely and lifts the 32.5 per cent tax bracket to $200,000.
Today’s result is a big win for the government ahead of five by-elections next month and the federal election next year.
Federal Labor will now have to decide if it wants to fight an election campaign on rolling back the tax cuts for millions of workers on higher incomes, so it can introduce its own plan targeted to benefit “battlers” if it wins government.
Senator Hanson dubbed it a “great day for every worker in Australia” after the tax cuts passed Parliament with her support.
“I think that Australians now who are struggling, those people on the lowest incomes, they are now going to get some relief and I think it’s great for the people,” she told reporters at Parliament House.
Slamming Labor, which last night attacked her with a robo-call in Queensland for supporting the bill, Senator Hanson said the Opposition was “forgetting about the battlers”.
“It’s the police, the motor mechanics, welders, carpenters, fire and emergency workers, ambulances, teachers, plasterers, electrical trades, these are the ones that Labor are forgetting to support them,” she said.
Senator Hanson blasted Labor MPs as “liars” who “could not lie straight in bed”, claiming the robo-call had falsely claimed she supported corporate tax cuts rather than personal income tax cuts.
“If Bill Shorten wants to be the Prime Minister of this country, then start being truthful with the people instead of lying to them over what One Nation’s role in this has been,” she said.
Earlier today, Senator Hanson confirmed she would back the tax cuts.
The senator told reporters outside parliament that the final stage of the plan, which benefits high income earners and costs $42 billion was “a real concern”, but ultimately she would support it to help Australians struggling with cost of living pressures.
Senator Hanson said she had not made any deals with the government in exchange for her support and did not make her final decision until this week.
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen welcomed the fact that middle income earners would receive tax relief on July 1.
But he said the full plan was “locking in unaffordable promises” on the “never never”.
Mr Bowen said Labor wanted to provide “sensible, well-crafted” tax cuts that were better, fairer and bigger in the short term, rather than tax relief that would come into effect in seven years.
Labor has slammed the package for its cost and the tax cut for high income earners in the later years, vowing this week to try to block all but stage one of the plan.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has indicated Labor will roll back the plan if it wins government and deliver its alternate plan to for tax cuts of up to $928 for low and middle income earners instead.
Centre Alliance, which has two votes in the senate the government needs to pass the legislation, this morning signalled it would support the full package if the government refused to split the bill.
The party, formerly the Nick Xenophon Team, did not support stage three but didn’t want to stand in the way of tax cuts for low and middle income earners.
Originally published as Tax cuts: Malcolm Turnbull’s $144 billion tax relief package passes Parliament