Business Council Of Australia Seeks Tax Answers From Liberal Pollster

One of Australia’s most influential lobby groups, the Business Council of Australia, has commissioned Liberal Party pollsters Crosby Textor to conduct private research on changes to the tax system, including the GST.

In a clear sign the BCA has heeded Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s call for help last year to make the case for tax reform in Australia, Crosby Textor will conduct qualitative and quantitative polling for the organisation.

The research comes as the Abbott government prepares to launch a sweeping review of Australia’s tax system in the first quarter of this year.

Last October, Mr Abbott told a BCA dinner that “the last time Australia had big tax reform the BCA was leading the charge. There is a lesson for these times. We will only get change if the people who do believe in it are prepared to fight for it”.

The research also comes as Liberal MPs including Trade Minister Andrew Robb and backbench MPs Dan Tehan, Dean Smith and Ian Macdonald have stepped up calls for changes to the GST in recent weeks.

The BCA decision to conduct both quantitative and qualitative polling on the tax system – which carries a price tag that runs to the tens of thousands of dollars – signals its willingness to play a more prominent role in advocating for reform of the tax system in 2015.

The BCA represents the chief executives of Australia’s top 100 companies and is politically close to the Abbott government, with former president Tony Shepherd heading up the last year’s Commission of Audit.

And in 2013 the organisation’s “Action Plan for Enduring Prosperity” report urged “consideration should be given to raising the rate of GST as well as broadening its base”.

Other issues being examined in the polling include Australia’s workplace relations system as well as the health and education systems. The Abbott government launched a sweeping review of the industrial relations system by the Productivity Commission late last year.

That review is due to report back by November 30 this year and is expected to guide the Coalition’s second term industrial relations agenda.

BCA director of media and public affairs Scott Thompson played down the significance of the Council’s examination of the tax system.

“The BCA, as many organisations do, regularly conducts research in the community to stay up to date about views across a range of issues affecting the economy and society,” he said.

“This helps ensure the BCA’s advocacy is conducted in a way which focused on achieving benefits for reform in the interest of the broad community, not just business.”

“Our research is not focused mainly on one or two issues, it is very broad based and focused on a wide range of issues across the spectrum of the BCA’s policy interests.”

Any rise in the rate or breadth of the GST would potentially raise billions of dollars in extra revenue. Applying the GST to private health insurance and education, for example, would raise an estimated $2.3 billion a year, and would not be regressive in the same way that applying the indirect tax to fresh food.

That revenue would be expected to be passed on to the states to help cover the growing cost of health and education.

But all states and territories have to agree to any changes to the indirect tax and the Labor states of South Australia and Victoria have indicated their unwillingness.

Crosby Textor managing director Mark Textor declined to comment on the polling when contacted by Fairfax Media.

This news story is reprinted from www.smh.com.au

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