They handed down the Budget. Here’s your share of the $786.6 billion bill.
What do you earn?
Your gross salary or wages for the year, before tax.
What you spend on goods and services.
Profit from a business you own.
Your profit from selling a business you built, shares, property or another asset.
The cost base is indexed up 3% a year for inflation before tax is worked out.
Australian tax basis. Resident income tax on 2026-27 post-Budget rates after the low income tax offset (LITO), plus the Medicare levy (2%, with the low-income shade-in), the new minimum 30% effective tax on capital gains, the company tax rate (25% under $50m turnover, 30% above), and GST on spending. Capital gains use the new post-Budget rules — the 50% CGT discount is replaced by cost-base indexation (3%/yr) and a 30% minimum effective rate, so figures here will differ from calculators still using the old 50% discount. Spending shares use the 2025-26 Budget. The 10-year and 30-year columns assume today’s tax level, held flat.
What sits on top. The Australian figure leaves out — and you may additionally pay — the Medicare Levy Surcharge (1.0–1.5% above $97k without private hospital cover), HECS-HELP repayments (up to 10% of taxable income), Division 293 (extra 15% super tax above $250k), the 12% Superannuation Guarantee employers pay on top of your wage, state-level payroll, land and stamp duty, fuel/tobacco/alcohol excise, customs duties, the luxury car and wine equalisation taxes, and inheritance & estate taxes.
International comparison basis. Each overseas figure includes the comparable income, payroll and capital-gains taxes for that jurisdiction. Compulsory retirement savings that you keep in your own name (Singapore CPF, Indonesian BPJS, NZ KiwiSaver, AU Super Guarantee) are excluded from every country — they’re savings, not tax. Consumption taxes (GST, VAT, US sales tax) and property taxes are also excluded on both sides. Country-specific exclusions are listed in the methodology notes inside each comparison.
This tool gives general information only. It is not tax or financial advice — talk to a registered tax agent about your own situation.
Can you balance the budget?
Anyone with half a brain can.
Who won, who paid
This section is opinion and commentary on the 2026 Budget: one reading of who wins and who loses. Reasonable people will disagree. It is not tax or financial advice.
Everybody wins.
One flat tax. A simpler system. The budget back in the black.
The problem
Australia taxes the people who stay. Bracket creep lifts your rate every year. The tax code gets longer. And the people who can leave do. Founders. Investors. Skilled grads. They take their ideas and their money to Singapore, Dubai and the US. You can’t tax your way to growth. Squeeze the people on a salary hard enough, and the ones with options walk.
Five changes. That’s the whole plan.
One flat rate: 30%
Income, company profit and capital gains, all taxed at 30%. No brackets, no bracket creep, no penalty for earning more.
Lift the GST to 13%
A broad tax that’s hard to dodge. Three points is what funds the flatter income tax. Still under New Zealand’s 15%.
Scrap the nuisance taxes
Customs and tariffs, the luxury car tax and the wine tax all go to $0. They raise little and cost a fortune to collect.
Make the miners pay their share
A 2% mineral resources levy and a $1/GJ LNG export levy. We ship the resources out once; the country should be paid for them.
An NDIS that lasts
$50,000 per participant, with tighter eligibility for those who genuinely need it. Cut the fraud and rorts. Around 20% fewer participants, and built to survive.
Everything else stays.
This isn’t austerity. Five changes. That’s it. Nothing else gets touched. Here’s what doesn’t move:
Just like that, we’re back in the black.
Five simple changes turn a $37 billion deficit into a surplus. The debt stops growing and starts to come down. Not one of them touches the pension, Medicare, schools, defence or infrastructure. It was never complicated. It just took the will to do it.
Why everybody wins
Grow the country by making it one of the best places on earth to earn, build and invest. Not by taxing harder the people who didn’t leave.
“Everybody Wins” is an independent policy proposal and opinion, offered for public discussion. It is general commentary, not financial, tax, investment or legal advice, and not a recommendation to take any action. See the full disclaimer at the foot of the page.