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Malcolm Turnbull has put so many ingredients on the tax reform table that it is impossible to figure out what we are going to be served for dinner. Indeed, while everyone around the table is hungry for change, it's inevitable that one man's feast will be another man's famine. Is an increase in the GST a good way to help the states fund more schools and hospitals or a good way to fund tax cuts for the rich? Wouldn't it make more sense to close the loopholes and concessions than to increase the GST? Mr Turnbull will have to let us know what he thinks soon enough, but in the mean time we will have to settle for watching the Liberals and the business community squabble over the best way to explain that tax cuts for the rich are the best way to help the poor. Virtually everyone who isn't on a retainer to think otherwise admits that the enormous, and rapidly growing cost of tax concessions for superannuation need to be reined in. Similarly, the idea that someone who makes $50,000 selling shares should pay half as much tax as someone who works full time for a year to earn the same amount is as inequitable as it is inconceivable. And then there is the billions of dollars worth of subsidies we still give to the fossil fuel industry at a time in which we are allegedly pursuing "low cost emission abatement". There is a long list of inefficient loopholes and tax concessions which, if closed, will make the tax system simpler and fairer and collect tens of billions of dollars in extra revenue each year. And that is the problem. Whether it's fixing loopholes or increasing the GST, all of the structural changes to the tax system being discussed at the moment will lead to an increase in revenue. While you might think that would be a virtue for a government that once raged against "budget emergencies", in reality the only thing the modern Liberal Party hates more than deficits is collecting the revenue to fix them. The Conservative Right always try to hide their ideological and distributional preferences behind a veneer of concern with "the economy". Luckily for the rest of us, Cory Bernardi is always willing to give us a hint about what they really think. This week he explained that "tax reform means lowering taxes and every justification that I've seen for tax reform thus far entails an overall increase in government revenue. That's not reform, that's gouging." One man's gouge is another's investment in essential services. Which brings us back to the GST. Is the point of increasing the GST to provide additional funding for schools, trains and hospitals or is it to fund cuts in the company tax rate? It's a simple question that warrants a simple answer. It needs to be asked again and again until we get one. Increasing the GST by 50 per cent would raise about $26 billion a year. That is almost as much as we give away in tax concessions for superannuation, which cost $35 billion in 2013-14. The state premiers are adamant that they need more money to fund the rapidly growing costs of servicing a rapidly growing population. The 50 million Australians that our premiers and prime ministers aspire to represent will require twice as many schools, hospitals, sewers and police stations as we currently possesses. Of course the business community think we should fund new investment by spending less on nurses and teachers, but they would say that. They don't send their mums to a public hospital or their kids to a public school. But while the premiers and the public want more investment in essential services, the Liberals and the business community are divided into two factions; those, like Business Council chief Jennifer Westacott, who want any tax changes to be "revenue neutral" and those, like Peter Costello, who want to use a bigger GST as a cover story to further cut the size of the public sector. As is usually the case, it looks like Peter Costello is on the losing side. A progressive income tax system is designed to collect a larger proportion of tax from high income earners than it does from low income earners. The redistributive effect of a progressive income tax system is not an "unintended consequence", it's a design feature. A broad-based consumption tax, on the other hand, is inevitably regressive, because low income earners tend to spend 100 per cent of their income while high income earners can afford to save. Those pushing for a revenue neutral package of a higher GST and lower corporate and personal income tax rates simply want to redistribute money from one group of citizens to another. It's not "reform", it's just delivering for friends. If, and it's a big if, the Liberals and the business community wanted to change the tax system in ways that would encourage greater workforce participation they would simply close the superannuation rorts and pour the extra money into providing high quality, flexible and affordable childcare. But they don't, so they won't. The whole debate about the need to increase the GST came about because Joe Hockey introduced $80 billion worth of long-term cuts to state government funding in his first budget. The fact that potential increases in the GST are now being used as an excuse to reduce overall tax collections shows just how broken Australian public debate really is. Those calling for a "grown up" debate about economic policy in Australia should call out the bull---- currently being spouted by many political and business leaders. So, let's go back to the beginning. Virtually everyone now accepts that superannuation tax concessions enjoyed by the wealthy are far too generous and do nothing to reduce the cost of the age pension. The issue of whether we should fix them or not is unrelated to the rate or base of the GST. Modest reforms could easily deliver $10 billion a year. Similarly, virtually everyone now accepts that the 50 per cent tax discount for income from capital gain is too generous and delivers the vast majority of its annual $4 billion largesse to Australia's wealthiest. Again, the benefits of fixing this rort are entirely unrelated to the rate or base of the GST. And, if "everything is on the table", virtually everyone accepts that a modest carbon price would be a better way to fund the government's Direct Action policy than the cuts to services announced in the 2014 budget. But, of course, everything isn't on the table. And many of the things that are seem to have a small sticker on them saying "for display purposes only". Closing the loopholes in our tax system would deliver billions of dollars a year while making the tax system fairer and simpler. Doing so would also do much to reduce the budget deficits that the Liberals were once so worried about. But it won't happen. We won't make the obvious reforms to the tax system for the simple reason that such reforms would raise additional revenue and improve the distribution of income. Quelle horreur. The only reason the GST is "back on the table" is to conceal how simple, fair and lucrative genuine tax reform could be. Rather than ask the public if we should rein in tax rorts to fund better childcare and parental leave and invest more in the infrastructure for our growing cities, the government has flicked the switch to vaudeville. Prepare for a flood of dodgy modelling and "econobabble" to conceal the fact that we are about to walk past the low hanging fruit in the gardens of the rich and powerful and take from the tables of those with the least. How do I know? Easy, it's what we have been doing for decades. Richard Denniss is the chief economist at The Australia Institute. Twitter: @RDNS_TAI