Vic 2026

Tax Reform for a Progressive and Sustainable Victoria

  • Australia’s lowest Payroll Tax 
  • Increase wages 
  • Boost home ownership
  • Discourage use of brown coal 
  • Free ambulance membership
  • Increase use of public transport
  • Cut the $16 billion per annum cost of alcohol abuse 
  • Improve vehicle fleet efficiency 
  • Increase revenue by $700 million 
  • Cut the cost of the SRL Northwest & Airport by $100 billion 
  • Cut the need for new mega-road projects saving $20 billion per annum

Google Document Version

Australia’s lowest payroll tax

Payroll taxes (including the Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy) suppresses wages and employment and is arguably the most regressive taxes.

Most voters do not own land other than their own tax-exempt home.

Victoria should increase Land Tax to fund substantial cuts to Payroll Tax. (One option could be to move the Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy to Land Tax instead of Payroll Tax.)

Benefits

  • The lowest Payroll Tax in Australia
  • Increase competition for workers, pushing up wages and employment
  • Increased pressure on investors to sell housing to home buyers
  • Employers compensated for increased Land Tax by reduced Payroll Tax
  • More votes from the majority of Victorians who do not pay Land Tax.

Quadrupling Brown Coal Royalties…

Brown Coal Royalties are probably the only way Victoria can levy a “Carbon Tax”. As far as I can tell the royalties were last increased in 2016 and raise about $70 million per year now.

Given electricity accounts for 2% of household spending and generation costs account for only 12% of that 2% the effect of consumers would be minimal.

…to fund Free Ambulance Membership?

One possible use of this revenue would be to scrap Ambulance Victoria membership fees. This would mean all Victorian’s and visitors were automatically covered for ambulance transfers.

Ambulance Victoria membership fees appear to net about $100 million annually.

Increase the Congestion levy 

Increase to push public transport usage up. Broaden the area that it applies to.

Increase Liquor licence fees – if over 15% ABV

Increase for business selling alcoholic drinks with over 15% Alcohol By Volume (Fortified wine, Liqueurs, Gin, Whisky, Rum). Consider abolishing licensing for beverages with below 3% ABV (light beer).

This could reduce the estimated $16 billion per annum cost to Victoria of alcohol abuse. 

Pick an “Other Tax” that could be scrapped

Increased revenue from the above two might allow for one or more of the below to be scrapped to make it revenue-neutral:

  • growth areas infrastructure contribution
  • windfall gains tax
  • levies on statutory corporations
  • landfill levy
  • metropolitan improvement levy
  • metropolitan planning levy
  • financial accommodation levy
  • contributions from employers and contractors
  • commercial passenger vehicle levy

Increase Vehicle Efficiency & Cut Reliance on Imported Fuel

Considering global heating and the increased risk of war Victoria should discourage use of ICE vehicles or at least increase their efficiency.

No Motor Vehicle Duty on “Green Cars”

Currently there is no duty discount on green cars under $80,000.

This should be changed so that green cars under $80,000 pay no duty and pay a discounted rate above that.

Adjust the duty rates on non-green cars to make this revenue-neutral. I suggest adding a surcharge for new vehicles over 5.4 meters in length or having engine capacity over 2 litres. This data is already recorded by VicRoads.

Reform Vehicle Registration and TAC fee 

Currently “Rego” is a flat tax that does not consider a vehicle’s value, efficiency or safety – except to give a discount to outer-metro and rural dual cab utes.

I suggest these fees be calculated using a formula to consider other data already recorded by VicRoads about the vehicle including:

  • Value
  • Curb Weight
  • Engine Capacity
  • Efficiency (if recorded)
  • Number of cylinders
  • Length & width
  • Load capacity

The reform can be revenue-neutral with small efficient vehicles getting a 50% discount and large inefficient vehicles getting a substantial increase.

If the formula only uses existing data in the VicRoads database the cost of the computer calculating the new fees would be trivial once the formula has been agreed to.

This could also favour shorter “cab over” load carrying vehicles over huge “show pony” dual-cab utes which are filling up our roads and car parks.

Yahoo news image.

Work From Home as a right

By giving Victorian office staff the right to WFH 80% of the time traffic on the roads is cut drastically.

This means we won’t need anymore mega-road projects once the current ones are completed saving $20 billion per year.

Fund redevelopment of low-quality commercial sites

Throughout the suburbs there are many poor quality shopping strips.

State or Federal governments should:

  1. Acquire these small blocks
  2. Consolidated to a single title
  3. Sell the consolidated block with permits for redevelopment as affordable housing with commercial on the ground floor.

Some seed money is needed but this would become self-funding.

More on this here.

Legalise cannabis and tax it

Australia’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimates a legalised market would deliver a $28 billion windfall for the public purse in the first decade.

Given Victoria has 26% of Australia’s population this would mean $728 Million of revenue per annum for Victoria.

The legalisation framework in Victoria should aim to keep the following the same:

  • The average price
  • The degree of difficulty in obtaining cannabis 
  • The overall usage level

I would expect the Greens, Libertarians and Legalise Cannabis members would support this providing a majority.

80% of Australians believe the possession of cannabis should not be a criminal offence.

Law enforcement costs should decrease substantially and/or provide more resources to tackle serious crime and hard drugs.

Prisoners serving time for cannabis offences only should be released if they have had good behaviour.

Cut the cost of the remaining SRL projects by $100 billion

A monorail train moving 120,000 people per day in Osaka
  • Elevated Monorail costs about A$ 140 M per km.
  • Underground Metro costs over A$ 1,400 M per km.

By using a LARGE elevated monorail (not something like the tiny Sydney monorail) the SRL Northwest & Airport could be built for $100 billion less than using an underground metro.

This is all down to the huge cost of tunnelling vs. the much lower cost of a mass-produced elevated system.

SRL East is unaffected by this and would continue to be developed as an underground train line.

See the Affordable SRL page for much more detail and costings.

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