Jim Chalmers has reinvigorated the economic policy debate with all the talk now about his economic reform roundtable.

Unfortunately, the biggest voices invariably are those who desire to help themselves. The other problem is the debate remains bounded in purposeful obfuscation. That is why it is very pleasing to read Acoss’s new report – Taxing income less and consumption more: The case against – which factchecks some myths about Australia’s tax system.

Acoss provides three points that need to be the basis of any discussion of tax.

If you can’t admit Australia is a low-taxing nation, then you should not get entry into any roundtable discussion on the topic. As Acoss notes, Australia is the ninth-lowest taxing nation across all the advanced economies in the world. We raise less tax than every nation in the G7 except for the US. We raise less tax than South Korea, Canada, Japan, or the UK.

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In 2022 (the latest OECD-wide figures) the average level of tax across the OECD was 34% of GDP, while in Australia it was just 29.4% of GDP.

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That’s the equivalent of an extra $128bn.

And sure, you might say, “that’s how it is, we can’t change that”.

But we change things all the time in our tax system. Paul Keating introduced capital gains tax, John Howard introduced a 50% capital gains tax discount and the GST. We used to have inheritance taxes, and........

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