The stupidity of Australia’s GST

The Herald reports:

One of Australia’s most hated taxes is finally going to be scrapped.

At a pivotal meeting in Melbourne today, the states and territories backed Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s push to remove the 10 per cent GST from sanitary items — known colloquially as the “tampon tax” — from January 1 next year.

The move will lower the price of feminine hygiene products, news.com.au reports.

Mr Frydenberg said there was “strong agreement” among the states and territories, even though it will collectively cost them $30 million in lost revenue.

Many other health items are already exempt from the GST, including nicotine patches, sunscreen and even Viagra.

This is what happens when you exempt one thing – you end up having to exempt more and more. Once politicians suceed in saying “A is good so don’t tax it” or “B is bad, tax it more” you end up with a hideous system.

In NZ GST applies to almost every good and service. We are almost alone in the world with this.

In Australia food is exempt but not takeaways! Condoms but not tampons.

Flavoured yogurt is exempt but frozen yoghurt has GST.

Sashimi is exempt but beef jerky has GST

Vegetable seedlings pay GST but not pickled vegetables

Flavoured milk attracts GST but not soy milk

Pizzas and pizza rolls have different GST treatment

So if anyone you know ever proposes we should follow Australia and start exempting certain items from GST, you should get a very large baseball bat and use it to pound them into the same misshaped monstrosity that they want to turn our GST into.