Sorry, Chris Bowen, but you’re talking tosh on tax

When I last filled in my tax return, the form wasn’t pink. And here’s another thing: the form isn’t blue for boys. There is not one income tax schedule for women and another for men.

This is something that Labor’s Treasury spokesman, Chris Bowen, might bear in mind when he starts spouting complete tosh about gender differences in the payment of income tax.

He might also bear in mind that the average rate of tax paid by women is lower than that of men. And that Family Tax Benefits are generally paid to women. If he wants to change all of this, I’m up for it. He could introduce a flat rate of tax starting from $1 of income in which the average and marginal rates of tax would be the same for everyone — women and men, low and high-income earners. Now you’re talking.

And maybe the FTB payments could be shared between mothers and fathers. That would be fair.

I guess it’s hard for Bowen to argue against a fundamental reform to the design of the income tax schedule — one that will eliminate a bracket and will ensure that the marginal tax rate is 32.5c in the dollar between $41,000 and $200,000 a year. That looks like a pretty good deal for many people, women and men.

He’s searching around for any angle on which to argue the toss, even if he has to share the stage with the loony, economically illiterate Greens.

And here’s yet another thing that may have escaped Bowen’s attention: many women and men regard their incomes as joint. You know, the family working together to support each other and the children. A tax cut for one is a tax cut for the family.

It is also more difficult to cut the tax of someone who pays very little tax in the first place. (It’s impossible to cut the tax of someone who pays no tax in the first place.) That applies to a reasonable proportion of women in the workforce.

But if you believe in progressive income tax — and one can only assume that Bowen and his Labor buddies do (they actually want to make it more progressive by increasing the top marginal tax rate to 47c in the dollar) — lower tax rates will result in bigger absolute cuts for those who pay a lot of tax rather than to those who pay little.

Either you think that income tax rates can never be lowered if they “hurt” women — Bowen’s current crazy talk — or you believe in trying to improve the income tax schedule — the Coalition’s position. Take your pick.