“It’s been said, a fine is a tax for doing bad, and a tax is a fine for doing good.” When tax time rolls around, it certainly feels that way. In Australia, every dollar you earn is taxed. But the burden doesn’t end there. If you want to spend that already-taxed money, you’re hit with another tax. The recipient of that money then faces more taxes, and if they spend it, they too are taxed again. It’s a never-ending cycle that feels more like punishment than public service.
One estimate breaks down the amount the average Australian will pay in taxes over their lifetime:
- Income Tax: $300,000 – $600,000
- GST: $160,000
- Council Rates: $100,000
- Fuel Excise: $40,000
- Alcohol and Tobacco Excise: $20,000
- Other Fees and Taxes: $20,000
- Total Rough Estimate: $640,000 – $940,000
In other words, you might have never made a worse investment.
What’s more, for many Australians, the tax system stifles ambition. The heavy burden of taxes discourages extra effort, longer hours, or the pursuit of higher earnings. One of the biggest penalties they face is a fine they are slapped with every few months, just for earning income. The government takes over half of what they make, and the more they earn, the more they owe. And rarely, if ever, do they receive back in services what they pay out in taxes.
As the cost of living crisis continues to worsen, many point to the financial burden imposed by the political elite and the bureaucratic class as a primary cause. At this point, it seems that “public servants” no longer exist to serve the people, but rather, the people exist to serve them.
Surely, there should be a seriously low cap on how much money a government can legally take from the public before being forced to concede they’re simply not able to do the job they’ve been tasked with. Excessive taxations exist to fund the campaign promises and fix the mistakes of inept and incompetent politicians, their bloated governments, and bureaucrat mates.
And bloated they are! In the United States, 6.68% of the population is government employees. In the United Kingdom, that figure is 8.75%. In Australia, a whopping 9.50% of the population is employed by the government.
In other words, one in five workers is a government-employed, “public servant.”
“Australia had 2,517,900 public sector employees in June, with 365,400 of those in the federal government, 1,939,100 in state government and 213,500 in local councils, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). That equates to more than 17 per cent of the total working population, which was 14,402,500 in the same month.”
As such, the burden of electing an already bloated and ineffective government invariably falls on the hardworking populace, seldom on the incompetent politicians themselves. Thomas Sowell aptly said, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
This frustration is evident in a one-minute video that’s gone viral on social media more than once. In the clip, a man vents about his experience with the tax system. He explains how he works long hours each day without any direct involvement from the government, only to watch a significant portion of his hard-earned money disappear when he gets his paycheck.
“I get up at 4:45 in the morning and I don’t see a sign of the government anywhere,” he said. “Every single day for eight and a half hours I exchange my time for labor. I don’t see the government anywhere except for on Thursdays. Thursdays, I get my paycheck. That’s when the government shows up. That’s when they feel they’re entitled to split half of the currency I made for trading my time, my skills, my labor.
“This goes on throughout the year where I’m responsible to keep records of all of this. At the end of the year, it’s my responsibility to prepare all that documentation for them to review it. They then determine if their cut was large enough. If I don’t meet their schedule, I face fines or fees or the threat of being locked up in one of their cells.”
A fine is a tax for doing bad. A tax is a fine for doing good.pic.twitter.com/malY7HlA0L
— Caldron Pool (@CaldronPool) April 19, 2025
In the end, it’s clear that the current tax system is not just a financial burden, but a barrier to personal growth and prosperity, leaving many to wonder whether the price of living and working in Australia is worth the return.
