A new report from the Australia Institute shows that Tasmanian families living in the federal electorate of Braddon benefit less than most other Australian electorates from the income tax cuts outlined in the 2018 federal budget.

The figures represent the change in household disposable income (after tax income) as a percentage of change in the national average. Modelling also took into account tax cuts and other budgetary measures announced in the 2018 budget and then averaged out the benefit in dollar terms to each federal electorate.

“Our modelling shows that low income electorates like Braddon, will receive a lot less from the new tax cuts than other, high earning electorates,” said Leanne Minshull, Director The Australia Institute Tasmania.

The electorates of Braddon and Lyons rank third and fourth last among all the 150 federal electorates. Once the numbers are averaged across the nation, families in both electorates only receive 72 cents for every dollar received by other families.

Tasmania as a whole is at the bottom of this list, with families only receiving 80 cents on average for every dollar.

“This tax cut is highly selective. It mostly benefits high income areas and wealthy inner-city electorates on the mainland” says Leanne Minshull, Director at The Australia Institute Tasmania.

“The top 10 electorates all get at least one and a half times more than the national average and in the highest paid electorate, the Prime Minister’s seat of Wentworth, households receive almost double the national average benefit.

“It is clear these tax cuts really are for the top-end, and Tasmanians won’t see the economic benefits these income tax cuts should theoretically deliver.”

Table 1: Electorate Totals – Tasmania*

Table 2: State Totals*

*Source: Australia Institute calculations; Analysis from NATSEM’s STINMOD+ Tax/Transfer model and SpatialMSM18 spatial microsimulation model

Note (*): The WA total is inflated because two of the electorates that are likely to lower the average (O’Connor and Durack) did not pass NATSEM’s validation test.