HD. Business Call for widening GST net. BY. Ruth Willia

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SE Business
HD Call for widening GST net
BY Ruth Williams Taxation Ruth Williams
WC 236 words
PD 3 March 2018
SN Canberra Times
SC CANBTZ
ED First
PG 29
LA English
CY (c) 2018 The Canberra Times
LP
NAB chairman Ken Henry has urged political and business leaders to revisit the "politically difficult" issue
of raising and broadening the GST to remedy Australia's "too-low" tax take, while decrying governments'
reluctance to act on challenging issues because they were seen as "too hard".
He has warned that without tax reform Australia risked losing the capacity to fund its infrastructure and
health, education and welfare systems - saying that "if you lose the capacity to finance government on a
sustainable basis then government fails". And he said that while the findings of the 2010 Henry tax
review remained current, he would not be opposed to an "inclusive" new tax inquiry - taking in
community groups, business, the welfare sector and the federal and state governments - "that seeks to
achieve support for a broad-based tax reform package".
TD
Dr Henry, the former Treasury secretary who led the previous Labor government's Future Tax System
review, reiterated his call this week for wide-scale tax reform beyond corporate tax cuts - and said the
nation needed political, business and community leaders who "relished the opportunity to do really
difficult things".
Dr Henry pointed to John Howard's decision to introduce the GST as an example of leadership, saying
"[Howard] understood that it needed to be done and he wanted to demonstrate that he was capable of
doing it.
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PUB Federal Capital Press of Australia Pty Ltd
AN Document CANBTZ0020180302ee330002q