Kasy Chambers | Tax breaks for the rich are making the system unfair

Sometimes these are choices we can all see, like when the government decides to build new submarines.

But often, the choices governments make about costs and savings are invisible. Australia's tax system is full of tax breaks that fly under the radar, taken for granted by those who enjoy them and those who don't.

Recently, Anglicare Australia launched a report that aimed to bring those choices out into the open, exposing how taxpayer money is spent and where it gets raised from.

Everyone benefits from our tax system, be it spending on infrastructure, health, or education.

But our research shows that people on the highest incomes also benefit from the way taxes are collected in the first place.

We looked at major tax breaks that cover property, investment homes, superannuation, and trusts.

We found that most of the benefits go to people on the highest 20 per cent of incomes.

Our conservative estimate is that it costs $72 billion each year to keep the wealthiest people wealthy.

Those on the lowest 20 per cent of incomes only get $4.2 billion.

Think about that next time you hear that these tax breaks are designed to help people get ahead.

If you really want to put those numbers in perspective, the flow to Australia's highest income earners is over six times the amount we spend on working age payments.

That includes the JobSeeker payment, which has been well below the poverty line for years.

All of this is bad news for those of us who care about fairness in the tax system.

But from next year, it is set to become even less fair.

When we added the government's planned tax cuts to our models, we found that $14.1 billion in benefits will go to the top 20 per cent of income earners.

That's out of a total cost of $17.7 billion. The bottom 20 per cent will get precisely nothing.

The tax cuts will be the single biggest blow to tax fairness in decades.

Combined, 56 per cent of the tax breaks we looked at go to the highest income earners.

The tax cuts will blow that out of the water, with 80 percent of the benefit going to the wealthiest Australians.

The research tells us two things.

First, the government should be scrapping the tax cuts in its next budget.

The other tax breaks we looked have been baked into the system, and changing them would be tough and politically fraught.

But the government has the chance to stop the tax cuts before they even start, freeing up billions of dollars and saving headaches over the cost for years to come.

Second, it shows us that Australia already has the money to tackle some of our pressing priorities.

The question is where we choose to spend it.

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This should be front of mind for all of us whenever we are told that we don't have the money to raise Centrelink payments, deliver quality aged care, or build social housing.

If we can afford to spend billions on tax breaks, then we can also afford to keep people out of poverty and make sure they get the care they deserve.

We all benefit when we come together to share the benefits of our wealth.

If we can afford to forego so much for those on the highest incomes, then we can surely afford to help those doing it tough.