GST and the Changing Incidence of Australian Taxes: 1994-95 to 2001-02

The past decade has seen major reforms to the design of Australia’s tax system. This paper outlines these reforms and examines their distributional impact across the household income spectrum. While the authors estimated tax incidence in Australia prior to the July 2000 (ANTS) reforms (which included the introduction of a 10% GST), no comprehensive estimates of the impact of these tax reforms have been made since that date. This paper addresses this deficiency. It finds that the personal income tax has become more income redistributive and more progressive over the period 1994-95 to 2001-02. However, the broad-based indirect tax reforms implemented over this period have become marginally more regressive and, because they have become more important as a revenue source, they now impact more adversely on post-tax income distribution. In the case of taxes other than the personal income tax and the reformed indirect taxes, they have become less regressive and have increased in importance. Overall, the progressivity of the Australian tax system and the distribution of post-tax income appears to have remained remarkably stable over the period.