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Australia also has a 60 year productivity low and a government that is boosting taxes on capital gains on shares/business to basically a worldwide high. So take

by ENGNR 4mo ago

Australia also has a 60 year productivity low and a government that is boosting taxes on capital gains on shares/business to basically a worldwide high. So take our experiments with a grain of salt!

Mordisquitos 4mo ago
So you're saying that four-day-workweek companies saw no decline in their productivity, in contrast to the Australian average productivity which went down overall‽ That means the four-day-workweek is even better than we thought it was!
- _kulang 4mo ago
  As an Australian, I am not sure that most work done in this country adds to productivity
  - HerbManic 4mo ago
    The ghost of David Graeber would agree.
BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
Tax changes that have been overdue for twenty-odd years to address house prices and attempt to level the playing field between labour and capital. Pity they didn't also change the gas tax.
- ENGNR 4mo ago
  House tax changes... strong yes Share tax changes... ugh My hope was cashed up bogans would start betting on shares instead of housing/crypto. At least it could be funnelled into something productive
  - sysworld 4mo ago
    Yeah, housing tax changes were needed, but seems weird to also do Shares. NZ, like always is lagging behind AU, and also needs house tax changes. The housing situation in NZ dire.
    - erentz 4mo ago
      NZ is even worse than Australia on the housing tax vs shares tax front. No housing taxes. Yet they have what is effectively an annual wealth tax on shares (FIF) even on their pitiful retirement savings schemes. This discourages saving in shares and encourages putting money in real estate.
  - BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
    My limited-research understanding is that there shouldn't be a difference between capital gains from housing versus shares, otherwise it's 'picking winners' or encouraging investment in specific directions. Having said that, the 'winner' they've picked is new house builds, which retain some tax benefits. I'm OK with that, without having skin in that game now or likely into the future. In regards to other comments further down regarding Australia's tax rates being high, internationally Australia is on the lower end. I believe the (seemingly very loud) naysayers about these tax changes are those who receive much more of their income via 'capital' than via 'effort', and so my sympathies are minimal to non-existent. Sure, I have capital investments that will yield lower returns, but I believe the changes make "the way it works" overall more fair to those who don't have the means to earn means passively. Cashed up bogans may funnel more of their money into new house builds, which is productive...? Semi-unrelated addition: To some extent I think that 'owning ones own house' is a motivator to work harder, so as home ownership has grown increasingly out of reach, so has some amount of motivation to actually work dried up. There's an inherent 'participation in society' to owning a home that has an intangible but high value. Whether this has anything to do with Australia's decreasing productivity, I don't know.
  - HDBaseT 4mo ago
    You shouldn't have to rely on shares investments to make a living or retire though. Just because someone doesn't invest in shares, doesn't mean they are a bogan. I'm sick of this term being thrown around at people you look down upon...
- shell0x 4mo ago
  The tax is already bad here, even without it. I paid $89,000 taxes just for the last financial year because stock gains are added up on top of the income and my partner doesn’t work and there’s no family support allowance here. I can apply Australian citizenship next year but I will leave ASAP after becoming a citizen for Singapore, Dubai or Hong Kong where the tax is < 20%
  - sumedh 4mo ago
    Why are you not leaving right now?
    - mianos 4mo ago
      I'd assume, as an Australian, who works for a HK company and has travelled for work all their life, the long term lifestyle in Australia is probably better than those countries. I love HK and Singo but I am not sure I'd want to live there. But for working, most people here would not work in an iron lung and the socialist government pretty much supports the idea that, if you don't like to work, you shouldn't have to as long as there are a few who will work. And, that number is fewer and fewer.
    - shell0x 4mo ago
      I could as a German but my partner has a weaker passport so I’m just waiting till she got her australian passport
      - tedk-42 4mo ago
        so you take but you don't want to give? perhaps try a different perspective of, "it's good i live in a place where we contribute for a common good"
        shell0x 4mo ago
        Taxes are a financial loss. I preferred living in Hong Kong and Singapore and do not enjoy living here honestly, but if you treat it as payment for my+partner’s backup citizenship, it seems more justifiable.
runtime_terror 4mo ago
What's your point about increased capital gains? Taxing income based on ownership should be higher than income via actual labor. It's insane that's not the case in most places.
- mianos 4mo ago
  If you start a business and grow it from hard work, you will now be taxed more. It's not just passive gains, it's all gain.
  - BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
    My understanding is that the difference is in the Capital Gains Tax, which doesn't apply to the day-to-day running of the business or its profitability or the salaries it pays. Again, my understanding is that the (only) difference is when the business is sold, and the 50% discount to CGT is no longer applied and instead there is an inflation adjustment instead (what I don't understand here is how to get an initial valuation, and would it be essentially $0, so the entire amount is capital gains? which feels somewhat unfair) So it will be a hit at the time the business is sold, not at any point during the running of the business. My (potentially naive) take is that the hard work that goes into running and growing a business is about the provision of the goods or services, but if it's about maximising "the exit", then that feels to me like not the kind of incentive that it should be. The 'running' of the business being more important than the selling of it. The 50% CGT discount has set a bad precedent. It should have been lower, or should have scaled over time. It has deformed the expected reward structure. Can a business agree to be sold in tranches over time? If such a thing helps minimise tax then I can see that becoming the norm. I know that selling a house is a big, singular chunk of money that generally needs to be 'managed' in order to pay the minimum amount of tax. Maybe fractional selling is going to become a thing. Wouldn't paying yourself a higher salary (since it's your own business) and/or putting more into superannuation offset the 'retirement' hit of not getting a golden exit parachute?
    - mianos 4mo ago
      [flagged]
bjt12345 4mo ago
How is the recently announced 2026 Australian Government budget relevant to this study done in 2023-2024? There is a whole bunch of other factors to Australia's productivity, not at least the drop in GDP per capita and fall in Total Factor Productivity.

by ENGNR 4mo ago

Australia also has a 60 year productivity low and a government that is boosting taxes on capital gains on shares/business to basically a worldwide high. So take our experiments with a grain of salt!

Mordisquitos 4mo ago

So you're saying that four-day-workweek companies saw no decline in their productivity, in contrast to the Australian average productivity which went down overall‽ That means the four-day-workweek is even better than we thought it was!

_kulang 4mo ago
As an Australian, I am not sure that most work done in this country adds to productivity
- HerbManic 4mo ago
  The ghost of David Graeber would agree.

BLKNSLVR 4mo ago

Tax changes that have been overdue for twenty-odd years to address house prices and attempt to level the playing field between labour and capital. Pity they didn't also change the gas tax.

ENGNR 4mo ago
House tax changes... strong yes Share tax changes... ugh My hope was cashed up bogans would start betting on shares instead of housing/crypto. At least it could be funnelled into something productive
- sysworld 4mo ago
  Yeah, housing tax changes were needed, but seems weird to also do Shares. NZ, like always is lagging behind AU, and also needs house tax changes. The housing situation in NZ dire.
  - erentz 4mo ago
    NZ is even worse than Australia on the housing tax vs shares tax front. No housing taxes. Yet they have what is effectively an annual wealth tax on shares (FIF) even on their pitiful retirement savings schemes. This discourages saving in shares and encourages putting money in real estate.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  My limited-research understanding is that there shouldn't be a difference between capital gains from housing versus shares, otherwise it's 'picking winners' or encouraging investment in specific directions. Having said that, the 'winner' they've picked is new house builds, which retain some tax benefits. I'm OK with that, without having skin in that game now or likely into the future. In regards to other comments further down regarding Australia's tax rates being high, internationally Australia is on the lower end. I believe the (seemingly very loud) naysayers about these tax changes are those who receive much more of their income via 'capital' than via 'effort', and so my sympathies are minimal to non-existent. Sure, I have capital investments that will yield lower returns, but I believe the changes make "the way it works" overall more fair to those who don't have the means to earn means passively. Cashed up bogans may funnel more of their money into new house builds, which is productive...? Semi-unrelated addition: To some extent I think that 'owning ones own house' is a motivator to work harder, so as home ownership has grown increasingly out of reach, so has some amount of motivation to actually work dried up. There's an inherent 'participation in society' to owning a home that has an intangible but high value. Whether this has anything to do with Australia's decreasing productivity, I don't know.
- HDBaseT 4mo ago
  You shouldn't have to rely on shares investments to make a living or retire though. Just because someone doesn't invest in shares, doesn't mean they are a bogan. I'm sick of this term being thrown around at people you look down upon...
shell0x 4mo ago
The tax is already bad here, even without it. I paid $89,000 taxes just for the last financial year because stock gains are added up on top of the income and my partner doesn’t work and there’s no family support allowance here. I can apply Australian citizenship next year but I will leave ASAP after becoming a citizen for Singapore, Dubai or Hong Kong where the tax is < 20%
- sumedh 4mo ago
  Why are you not leaving right now?
  - mianos 4mo ago
    I'd assume, as an Australian, who works for a HK company and has travelled for work all their life, the long term lifestyle in Australia is probably better than those countries. I love HK and Singo but I am not sure I'd want to live there. But for working, most people here would not work in an iron lung and the socialist government pretty much supports the idea that, if you don't like to work, you shouldn't have to as long as there are a few who will work. And, that number is fewer and fewer.
  - shell0x 4mo ago
    I could as a German but my partner has a weaker passport so I’m just waiting till she got her australian passport
    - tedk-42 4mo ago
      so you take but you don't want to give? perhaps try a different perspective of, "it's good i live in a place where we contribute for a common good"
      - shell0x 4mo ago
        Taxes are a financial loss. I preferred living in Hong Kong and Singapore and do not enjoy living here honestly, but if you treat it as payment for my+partner’s backup citizenship, it seems more justifiable.

runtime_terror 4mo ago

What's your point about increased capital gains? Taxing income based on ownership should be higher than income via actual labor. It's insane that's not the case in most places.

mianos 4mo ago
If you start a business and grow it from hard work, you will now be taxed more. It's not just passive gains, it's all gain.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  My understanding is that the difference is in the Capital Gains Tax, which doesn't apply to the day-to-day running of the business or its profitability or the salaries it pays. Again, my understanding is that the (only) difference is when the business is sold, and the 50% discount to CGT is no longer applied and instead there is an inflation adjustment instead (what I don't understand here is how to get an initial valuation, and would it be essentially $0, so the entire amount is capital gains? which feels somewhat unfair) So it will be a hit at the time the business is sold, not at any point during the running of the business. My (potentially naive) take is that the hard work that goes into running and growing a business is about the provision of the goods or services, but if it's about maximising "the exit", then that feels to me like not the kind of incentive that it should be. The 'running' of the business being more important than the selling of it. The 50% CGT discount has set a bad precedent. It should have been lower, or should have scaled over time. It has deformed the expected reward structure. Can a business agree to be sold in tranches over time? If such a thing helps minimise tax then I can see that becoming the norm. I know that selling a house is a big, singular chunk of money that generally needs to be 'managed' in order to pay the minimum amount of tax. Maybe fractional selling is going to become a thing. Wouldn't paying yourself a higher salary (since it's your own business) and/or putting more into superannuation offset the 'retirement' hit of not getting a golden exit parachute?
  - mianos 4mo ago
    [flagged]

bjt12345 4mo ago

How is the recently announced 2026 Australian Government budget relevant to this study done in 2023-2024? There is a whole bunch of other factors to Australia's productivity, not at least the drop in GDP per capita and fall in Total Factor Productivity.