After nearly two weeks of the election campaign, tax remains a central issue as the major parties try to win the hearts and minds of a sceptical electorate.

The Prime Minister's message is that the Coalition is for lower taxes. Labor, according to Scott Morrison, is for high taxes.

Bill Shorten would concede that Labor is planning to raise more tax revenue than the Government by not being so generous with tax cuts and closing off what it sees as loopholes for high-income earners.

But even Mr Shorten got caught up in the "tax is bad" mindset last week when he reportedly told a coal industry worker in Queensland, who apparently earns about $250,000 a year, that Labor would look at tax cuts for high-income earners if it won the election.

All this tax talk raises the question: are our politicians approaching tax in the most appropriate way? Or are they putting the cart before the horse?

It's worth remembering what tax is meant to be.

In simple terms, tax is the community using its collective resources to pay for the services we need and want from government.

That is paying for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, welfare, police, courts, defence, etc, and even politicians, who are our voice in government.

How governments spend the money they raise in taxes, and how much they raise in taxes, goes a long way to shaping the society we live in.

How much tax is needed depends on what services we want

Politicians in many ways are the macro financial planners of Australian society, and they could learn a lot from real financial planners.

Because one of the first questions a good financial planner would ask a client is, "what do you want to do with your life?"

And then, once the client's life goals were out on the table, the financial planner would examine how that person can raise the money to pay for them.

There's no way a financial planner would tell a client that slashing his or her income would have no impact on their ability to achieve their goals.

But that's effectively what election campaigns based on promised tax cuts without a detailed discussion of future spending cuts are doing.

To quote from the Federal Budget papers released three weeks ago: "The Government is providing additional tax relief of $158 billion. That's on top of the $144 billion in tax cuts legislated in last year's Personal Income Tax Plan."

If the Government is re-elected and sticks to its plan, that's $300 billion less to spend on all the public services mentioned above than if current tax rates remained the same.

Labor is currently raising more tax than it's planning to cut, with its changes to negative gearing, lowering of the capital gains tax discount and changes to franking credits and trusts.

But it has also been drawn into the battle over income tax, matching the Government's short-term commitments and promising long-term cuts as far as economic circumstances allow.

And in case we don't get the message about tax, there's the emotive language.

There are repeated references to the "tax burden" and "tax relief", as this paragraph from the Budget papers illustrates: "The Government is also keeping taxes as a share of GDP within the 23.9 per cent cap, limiting the tax burden on Australians."

The "23.9 per cent cap" is also interesting. It's arbitrary, invented by politicians. Just like the US "debt ceiling", which sees the US Government semi-regularly come to a standstill.

Lower taxes don't necessarily mean a better lifestyle

It's also meaningless.

A global study of quality of life by the Wharton School of Economics in the United States ranks Australia seventh, down two places since last year.

The top six, in order of merit, are Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Finland.

All have significantly higher tax-to-GDP ratios than Australia.

Tax to GDP:

1. Canada 32% 2. Sweden 44% 3. Denmark 46% 4. Norway 38% 5. Switzerland 28% 6. Finland 43% 7. Australia 24%

Source: OECD

One takeout from the Wharton study is that lower taxes don't necessarily equal a better quality of life.

Some change in tax rates or thresholds is probably needed, given the "bracket creep" effect that pay rises have, pushing workers onto higher marginal tax rates.

But the recent Federal Budget also reveals that a key plank of the Government's fiscal strategy is to make payments as a percentage of GDP fall, from close to 25 per cent to just above 23.5 per cent.

Treasury's long-term projections show total government payments falling from nearly 25 per cent of GDP to just over 23.5 per cent. ( Supplied: Australian Government )

So the Government wants to tax less and spend less.

But where will those spending cuts come from? Which services will be stopped, downsized or subject to "efficiencies"?

Rather than a focus on tax cuts, perhaps this election campaign could put the horse back before the cart and start with a frank discussion with voters about what type of society we want Australia to be.

Once that question is answered then the conversation could move to, "this is what it will cost, this is what we need to raise in revenue to afford it and this is how much tax you'll pay".