Carbon Tax Fallout: tax rates for low-income earners up, plus, “what compensation?”

Packaged along with the much-ballyhooed “save the planet” carbon tax were some increases in marginal tax rates which the press went pretty quiet on.  And although the tax-free threshold was raised, the LITO (low income tax offset) was actually reduced, which along with rises in the marginal tax rates for the lowest two tax brackets means that this is not such a good deal after all, especially for lower-income Australians.

I’m not an economist (and I don’t even play one on TV) so I’m linking you over to both Professor Sinclair Davidson’s reckonings at Catallaxy and Clinton Mead’s at the Australian Libertarian Society blog.  As a layman I found Clinton Mead’s in-depth explanation and examples pretty clear and easy to understand – I recommend wandering over and having a look at both his post and the comments there.

In short, though, both economists do a good job of showing what the effects of the new tax scales and the alleged “compensation” will work out to for those on various incomes.  And it’s not nearly as rosy a picture as the government or its cheerleaders in the lapdog media would have us believe.

In related carbon tax news, analysis of the latest opinion polls throws up a pretty surprising figure:  62 percent of 18-34 year olds are opposed to Labor’s carbon tax policy.  Wait, what?  If you only listen to the ABC and GetUp and its related pseudo-grassroots lobby groups, you get the distinct impression that it’s only the old fogeys who are opposed to this tax; that the Yoof are all hip & jiggy wit’ it.  So what’s up that? Are we being fed yet another busted meme which is all about the narrative Labor and the MSM want to push but nothing much to do with reality?

Sinc has the full polling results here and they’ll be worth referring to later.  As he points out, “Both these polls can be considered pre-policy announcement benchmarks. If Gillard is able to sell her policy to the public we’ll be able to see changes of opinion here.”  So, bookmark ’em.

And also, just a memo to myself to remember to check out the Catallaxy blog more often, especially since I’ve pretty much gone off the comments thing at Bolt’s.  Some really good voices over there, and it doesn’t seem to be over-run by astroturfers and trolls (yet!).