Politics With Michelle Grattan: Ken Henry On Changing The Tax System To Give Struggling Workers A Fairer Go

(MENAFN- The Conversation) In August, the Albanese government will hold an economic“roundtable” that will discuss productivity, budget sustainability and resilience. Australia's tax system will be one of the central issues, and stakeholders are gearing up with their varying arguments for changes.

Ken Henry, a former secretary of the Treasury, has been part of the tax debates of the past 40 years. He was a treasury official working on tax at the time of the Hawke government's 1985 tax summit and led the major review of the tax system commissioned by the Rudd government.

Henry is a passionate advocate of bold tax reform, especially reform that tackled intergenerational inequity, and he joins the podcast to discuss the issues.

Looking forward to the roundtable, Henry outlines some of the many changes that he thinks should be considered,

Henry wants a tax system that does not disadvantage younger people who are in the workforce; he says the present“lazy” reliance on bracket creep to“bring the budget back to anything approaching balance is doing enormous damage to younger people in particular”.

On reform generally, Henry says he's“disappointed” that more hasn't been done on the recommendations from his review.

Despite backing significant reform, Chalmers has been a long-term opponent of GST reform, although not ruling it out completely. Henry says all options should be left on the table,

On Chalmers' plan to tax unrealised capital gains on big superannuation balances, while not directly opposed, Henry says there are other ways to make the system fairer,

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