Release: Stop making regional Australians pay for city amenities

Release: Stop making regional Australians pay for city amenities 

The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, the nation’s largest grassroots advocacy group representing all taxpayers, today called for reform to the zone tax offset and remote area tax concessions. 

“Life in rural Australia does not resemble life in the city centers. Not only do people in rural areas face a harsher climate and a more isolated existence, the economies in these areas differ greatly from those in more populated areas.” Says ATA Communications Manager, Emilie Dye. Our tax code should recognize and offset these differences.”

“Politicians often forget the rural areas with fewer and more scattered voters. This often leads to rural areas being left behind as laws the don’t affect (or even hurt) these individuals are passed.

“Rents vary between rural and urban areas, as do job opportunities and overall cost of living. However, the federal government still expects rural folks to pay the same tax and work at the same minimum wage as city dwellers.

“People living outside of cities do not benefit from all the government provided amenities. While a sydneysider commutes to work every day on the train, someone from woop woop may never ride on a transit system. But they still have to pay for it. 

“It is time we remembered hard working rural Australians and provided proper zone tax offsets and remote area tax concessions instead of relying on a system developed in the 1940s.

“ Life in rural Australia is hard enough, the government shouldn’t make those people pay for artwork they will never see and trains they will never ride in cities they will never visit.”