A BUDGET for the people, or a budget about re-election? Most certainly on the face of it, it’s both.
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Super tax breaks, where the government will target high-end super tax concessions to preserve savings incentives for women and low-income earners, was a welcome detail to come out of last night’s budget.
Australians with a combined income of more than $250,000 will have their tax on superannuation contributions doubled and the cap on lump sum payments will be reduced.
Who wouldn’t argue that these changes are long overdue, along with an overhaul of the tax system, targeting the big end of town and helping out the little guys.
Small to medium-sized businesses will get a tax cut from July 1, and the threshold at which it kicks in will be increased from $2 million to $10 million.
There’s money for education, an extra $1.2 billion from 2018 for schools and $5 billion over four years for a subsidised public dental scheme.
The government says the budget is about jobs and growth – and living within our means.
And as budgets go, this was a pretty important one for the Coalition, paving the way to an election on July 2.
That gives the Turnbull government just 60 days to plump up their economic credentials and sell their policies to the people.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten will deliver Labor’s budget reply speech later this week.
But it remains to be seen who Australians will trust to run the economy for the next four years or so.
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On another note, there’s some relief also for homeowners, with the Reserve Bank announcing a cut to official interest rates of a quarter of a per cent yesterday to a record low 1.75 per cent.
That translates to a saving of $45 on the average $300,000 mortgage, if the retail banks pass on the cut to customers.
But spare a thought for self-funded retirees, who will have to make their dollars go even further now, with
ever-diminishing returns from their retirement nest eggs.