Greens urge Labor to block income tax cuts

The Greens are urging Labor to ditch support for the federal government's personal tax cuts after getting the package costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

The Greens are urging Labor to oppose the Turnbull government's personal income tax cuts after a year-by-year analysis by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office suggested they will "turbocharge" inequality.

Labor has been pressing Treasurer Scott Morrison to provide a year-by-year breakdown of the seven-year plan since the May budget without success.

The whole package will cost $144 billion over the next decade.

The tax cuts come in three stages with final component in 2024 increasing the 45 per cent marginal tax rate from $180,001 to $200,001.

It will also remove the 37 per cent marginal tax rate altogether so that all income from $41,001 to $200,000 is taxed at a rate of of 32.5 per cent.

The PBO calculated the cost to the budget will be $6.25 billion in 2024/25, then rise by around $1 billion a year totalling $41.6 billion over five years.

Greens Leader Richard Di Natale said almost 70 per cent of the entire benefits of the final year flow to people earning over $90,000.

"Instead of voting through Turnbull's tax cuts package that will hand back thousands of dollars to executives and politicians and make economic inequality worse, Bill Shorten and the Labor Party should join the Greens in ruling out supporting the entire income tax cut package," Senator Di Natale said in a statement.

His treasury spokesman senator Peter Whish-Wilson said the Greens want essential services, not tax cuts.

"This tax cuts arms race must end."

PERSONAL TAX CUTS - YEAR BY YEAR

2018/19 $360 million

2019/20 $4.12 billion

2020/21 $4.42 billion

2021/22 $4.5 billion

2022/23 $13.4 billion

2023/24 $11.15 billion

2024/25 $17.85 billion

2025/26 $19.55 billion

2026/27 $21.1 billion

2027/28 $22.9 billion

2028/29 $24.6 billion

Total: $143.95 billion

(Source: Parliamentary Budget Office.)


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