Former Prime Minister Says Top Tax Bracket Too High

Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating says the top marginal personal tax rate in Australia of 45 percent is too high, describing anything over 39 percent as “confiscatory.” “There’s an issue that all societies should have, of how much [of] a person’s conscientious efforts and wealth should be delivered to the state,” the former treasurer told the Australian Financial Review. “Once you start getting the top rate over, in my opinion, 39 [percent], it becomes confiscatory and when they become confiscatory you just lose all that impetus to make a dollar and do clever things.” He also wants to see the indexation of the personal income tax scales to ensure the incentive remains and to “keep governments honest.”...