Labor's proposed tax cut for small business looks to be dead in the water after Finance Minister Mathias Cormann labelled it a "sick joke".
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has called on the government to support his plan to slash small business tax rates to 25 per cent, a reduction of five percentage points.
Small business was one of the winners in this week's federal budget, with the government outlining a smaller cut of 1.5 points.
Mr Cormann scoffed at Mr Shorten's tax proposal on Saturday, saying he had not detailed how it would be paid for.
"He is raising expectations by making promises he knows he can't keep," the minister told Sky News.
"Unless he points to how he would pay for it, unless he shows us the money, you really can't take any such statement seriously in any way, shape or form."
Asked how the opposition proposed to pay for the small business tax cut, Labor MP Brendan O'Connor said the parties could work through their differences.
"It (government) says it wants to help small business," he told Sky News.
"Why wouldn't you want to work with an opposition if indeed we can find common ground?"
Meanwhile, Labor accused the federal government of distorting the figures to make the budget forecast look better than it is.
Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke says the government has included Future Fund earnings midway through its medium projections to make things look rosier than they are.
Mr Cormann on Saturday defended the inclusion of Future Fund earnings in this week's budget, claiming they have always been included in the budget bottom line.
But Mr Burke slammed the claim as untrue, saying it distorts the budget graph and creates a "false sense of the future".
Fairfax Media reported the present $41 billion deficit will almost reach zero by 2020 before going into surplus through to 2026.
The surplus predictions are boosted by the $117 billion Future Fund earnings in 2020-21, the report states.
Mr Burke said the government had suddenly "flicked the switch" in its medium-term projections.
"This is a budget with something to hide," he told reporters on Saturday.
"The medium-term outlook looks better because they have done what no other government has done.
"Up to half of the future surplus turns on the fact that midway through a presentation, they are willing to change the rules to try to make this budget look better than it is."
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