PER CAPITA TAX SURVEY 2022 1

Reversing Stage 3 of the tax cuts and diverting the revenue to fixing aged care was the most popular choice of the various options given to find sufficient funding to address the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, well ahead of a Medicare-style levy on all taxpayers. [...] The Greens/AUWU demand of the reinstatement of the full ‘Coronavirus supplement’ by lifting the rate by another $250 a week / $500 a fortnight received the support of 11.4% of respondents, which is statistically equivalent to the proportion of people, at 11.2%, who believe the rate of JobSeeker is now too high and should be reduced. [...] In the wake of COVID-19 and the biggest economic shock in a century, responses to the 2021 and 2022 Tax Surveys suggest that public understanding of the choices made by government around revenue collection and public investment, and of the nature of public debt compared to private debt, is growing. [...] Despite the turbulent circumstances in which the 12th annual Tax Survey was conducted, the results demonstrate that the Australian public remains deeply committed to the ideal of economic equity, and to the role of our tax and transfer system in promoting fairness and opportunity. [...] The 2022 Per Capita Tax Survey could be a harbinger of an evolution in economic policy, away from the surplus fetish that has crippled economic policy for decades, and towards more public investment in the skills of the Australian people and the productive capacity of our economy; or it could simply reflect the uncertainty of the times we are living through.