Better revenue sharing between Commonwealth and the States without transfer of tax powers is needed. Income tax cuts should be excluded from tax reform. They spend most of their income rather than save. They can be seen to be at the dissaving end of the life cycle. They tend to use interest and dividends from savings and shares for living purposes rather than capital accumulation.
Older people have low incomes compared to the rest of the community.
Most older people receive a full or part Age Pension. For these reasons, tax reform can affect older people through changes in tax scales and through changes in sources of taxation. There will be great sensitivity to any changes in the tax mix that favours tax on consumption over tax on income. Older people would be very disadvantaged if a GST was implemented to offset income tax cuts. Older people do not stand to gain from income tax cuts because their incomes are too low to pay tax or otherwise they pay only a small amount of tax.