2011 Budget

[The Sleeping Giant]

i guess most arent liking the $900 we got from the government all that time ago now hey i said this would happen as i donated my money to charity at the time

I think the $900 served it's pupose.

And if you can afford to donate $900 to charity, then paying a few more dollars tax each year won't hurt you. After all, your a tradie, you'll just pass it on to the customer.

[Q.]

but also BAD - reducing tax benefits for tradies.

Why? Most tradies supplement their income by doing cashies and I bet most don't declare that portion of their income.

Besides, dumping concessions that allow tradies who minimise their tax exposure by maximising travel in their vehicles actually makes sense. The policy has environmental benefits too.

[Bully]

not all tradies do cashies there mate. i dont. I do the correct thing yet i am now going to lose money. Like the carbon tax with fuel, shafted again by another labor government.


And what is it with everyone thinking tradies do the wrong thing all the time?

[Dutchy]

This policy may help the demise of our car industry, most cars sold are fleet cars often to employees taking advantage of the FBT concessions for cars on novated leases. I feel for people who have just entered into novated lease arrangements based upon the current FBT arrangements they will be burnt financially big time. It won't take much to push Ford over the edge and cost jobs,BUT pensionsers will get a $300 set top box, now that's a social conscience This budget has had virtually no effect on me personally and I'd never buy a Ford!

I can cop the FBT changes but surely they should let existing agreements run their course and any new agreements should be at the new FBT rate. Ive got another 15 months of my packaged lease where I do over 25,000 kms per year to gain the 11% FBT rate, now it goes up despite me basing all my budgets on the 11%. Dickheads...

[mick]

This policy may help the demise of our car industry, most cars sold are fleet cars often to employees taking advantage of the FBT concessions for cars on novated leases. I feel for people who have just entered into novated lease arrangements based upon the current FBT arrangements they will be burnt financially big time. It won't take much to push Ford over the edge and cost jobs,BUT pensionsers will get a $300 set top box, now that's a social conscience This budget has had virtually no effect on me personally and I'd never buy a Ford!

I can cop the FBT changes but surely they should let existing agreements run their course and any new agreements should be at the new FBT rate. Ive got another 15 months of my packaged lease where I do over 25,000 kms per year to gain the 11% FBT rate, now it goes up despite me basing all my budgets on the 11%. Dickheads...

Hopefully existing lease arrangements will be allowed to run their course, it is the fair thing to do. I leased a car some years ago and my employer was a public benevolent institution so I was exempt from FBT, however in the interim the ATO reviewed the status of our instution and we lost our FBT exempt status, luckily for me I only had 6 months left on the lease, so I decided to buy the car from the leasing company - an OK outcome - but had I say 2-3 years remaining I would have lost out big time. In fairness to government (Howard) and ATO eventually after about 18 months and a strong campaign by the unions they compensated people who had entered into longer agreements with a special grant.

[Dutchy]

No they wont run their course Mick, they are implementing a stepped FBT system from this week.

[Bully]

i guess most arent liking the $900 we got from the government all that time ago now hey i said this would happen as i donated my money to charity at the time

I think the $900 served it's pupose.

And if you can afford to donate $900 to charity, then paying a few more dollars tax each year won't hurt you. After all, your a tradie, you'll just pass it on to the customer.

so your saying u would have gone hungary for weeks without this $900 that the goverment gave u for FREE?? what would u have done if they didnt give u this money there mate?you must be in some serious debt if you were relying on this payment to buy the shopping or pay the bills that week. what would have happened if this grant never came about for you?

I cant afford it no....i didnt say i could. My point was i donated it to charity because NOTHING is free ever from the goverment and at the time of this grant i said....we would be paying for it in the future...and i was correct . And donating it to charity was the best thing i could do.

[dedja]

Poor old Mad Monk ... how hard it is for the born to rulers to be opposition

Boo hoo, I want another election ...

[The Sleeping Giant]

i guess most arent liking the $900 we got from the government all that time ago now hey i said this would happen as i donated my money to charity at the time

I think the $900 served it's pupose.

And if you can afford to donate $900 to charity, then paying a few more dollars tax each year won't hurt you. After all, your a tradie, you'll just pass it on to the customer.

so your saying u would have gone hungary for weeks without this $900 that the goverment gave u for FREE?? what would u have done if they didnt give u this money there mate?you must be in some serious debt if you were relying on this payment to buy the shopping or pay the bills that week. what would have happened if this grant never came about for you?

I cant afford it no....i didnt say i could. My point was i donated it to charity because NOTHING is free ever from the goverment and at the time of this grant i said....we would be paying for it in the future...and i was correct . And donating it to charity was the best thing i could do.

Tell you the truth mate, I can't remember what I spent it on. Wasn't on bills or debt that's for sure.

[Mad Mat]

what is it with me and labor governments??? are they just out to get me are they..

You and everyone else trying to get ahead in life. Swan is a muppet. Delivered the budget terribly, made Abbott look like Churchill.

[Q.]

Ditch the budget reply — it’s a waste of time

by Bernard Keane

Really, Tony Abbott’s budget reply would have been cheaper and more efficient if he had held a press conference in the Liberal Party room. Or maybe just issued his speech as an attachment to a media release (titled, say, “Abbott budget reply demolishes incompetent government”). That 150 MPs went in to sit and listen to such a content-free effort was an extraordinary waste of time.

Not of course that Abbott is the first opposition leader to dodge the basic requirement of a budget reply — that you offer some insight into what sort of budget you would have offered. For example, see what Peter Costello had to say about Mark Latham’s effort in 2004, comments entirely applicable to Abbott’s effort last night.

Then again, perhaps that’s part of what’s been happening to the whole budget cycle in recent years. For all that governments have made them the centre piece of the political year, the media cycle is now so fast that what used to be the start of a week or more of selling and debate is already over within 48 hours of the budget itself — and this year only lasted that long because of the bizarre defence of middle class welfare conducted by News Limited.

So spare a thought for Joe Hockey, who by the time he rises to give his budget reply at the Press Club next week, will seem like he’s discussing ancient history.

Notionally, Hockey will provide evidence of how he would achieve his stated aim of bringing the budget back to surplus “even earlier” than Labor, meaning eliminating the forecast $22.6 billion deficit entirely. Hockey and the Liberals keep referring to the savings put together by the opposition last year as evidence of how they’d return to surplus quicker. The problem is, those savings were, like many of the savings announced by Labor on Tuesday night, backloaded.

They yielded much more in the way of savings in the out-years of the budget than in 2011-12. The savings announced pass-the-parcel style by Hockey and Andrew Robb after last year’s budget, for example, totalled less than $4 billion in 2011-12. Finding an extra $22 billion in savings in one year, and that year being just over a month away, requires the sort of cuts no government has ever contemplated.

In short, if you hadn’t guessed, Hockey let his mouth run away with him when he talked about an “even earlier” return to surplus. It’s not the first time that’s happened, and it won’t be the last.

As for positive policy, we were told that 2011 would be the year we saw more policy substance from the opposition, and almost at the halfway mark there’s only been an uncosted effort on welfare reform and a mental health announcement. Presumably we’ll wait a little longer to see the results of Robb’s policy review work, because the budget period hasn’t revealed any of it.

Possibly quite a lot longer, because the lack of content in Abbott’s speech is almost explicitly a reflection of the opposition’s lack of interest in doing anything to shift the spotlight off the government. It’s the smart political play, and we should probably now abandon the whole idea of a budget reply, since no opposition leader with a brain will ever again use it in the manner it is intended for, unless they’re Brendan Nelson — deep in political trouble and in need of a policy circuitbreaker.

Nonetheless, it provides a neat contrast to the government. As one backbencher told Crikey: ”Abbott got the politics right, we got the policy right.” Labor is getting on with the dull-but-worthy stuff of reform, while Abbott capitalises on everything he can and reaps the benefits in the polls.

It’s funny, looking back. When Labor had a massive polling lead in 2008 and 2009, it governed like it was trailing by eight points. Now that it is trailing by eight points, it’s found some reform backbone, even if its selling remains poor and it can’t bring itself to pick any really big fights on issues like taking taxpayers’ money off bludgers on middle class welfare. Not that that’s likely to save it.

Little wonder Abbott feels zero compulsion to offer anything other than verbiage and slogans.

[Bully]

i enjoyed abbotts response.

[southee]

i enjoyed abbotts response.

So did I.....

[Bully]

was funny seeing swanns and julias face responses to abbotts reply. Yes abbott talked some crap but was funny

[Bully]

recetn news poll out states the budget that swann and the labor government put on the table during the week has hurt them with people saying it will hurt the economy

[Leaping Lindner]

recetn news poll out states the budget that swann and the labor government put on the table during the week has hurt them with people saying it will hurt the economy

News Limited spent the week attacking the Budget with hysterical headlines, and then a poll they conduct saw the vast majority of their readers didn't like the budget. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

[FattyLumpkin]

Something I just found - 'cos my lease is just 5 months old!


The key points from the perspective of employers and employees are as follows:

•The new rules do not apply to existing novated leases. All current packaging arrangements remain unchanged.
•New leases will, from today, use a transitional set of statutory rates that will gradually phase out the 7% and 11% valuation options over the next four years (see the table in the Treasury link above). This means that the savings achievable for employees driving more than 25,000 kilometres per annum will be lower and that, at least for the time being, some employees will still need to meet kilometre targets in order to get the most out of their packaging arrangements.
•The new rules will now open up novated car leasing to employees currently not packaging a vehicle and driving less than 15,000km per year. Previously employees driving less than 15,000 kms were required to value their cars for tax purposes using the 26% rate, but now the 20% rate is immediately available. Since the average Australian car travels less than 15,000km per annum it’s likely that a significant number of employees who previously couldn’t achieve good savings will now benefit from a salary packaged car.

http://ceoblog.smartsalary.com.au/2011/05/11/the-2011-12-budget-big-news-for-vehicle-packaging/

[Bully]

watching australia agenda on Sky at the moment. Who are these 2 guys on this show who drill the pollys over things? Are they the president and vice president. Its like the pollys have to answer to these 2 guys ?