Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has flagged that tax concessions for the wealthy are in Labor's sights as debate continues about the fairness of Australia's tax system.
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While conversation has been focused largely on a potential increase to the Goods and Services Tax, both Mr Shorten and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have used addresses this week to call for a broader discussion about the tax system as a whole.
Mr Turnbull has emphasised the need for any change to taxation to be fair for Australia's most vulnerable.
Speaking in Melbourne on Friday, Mr Shorten said if the country was debating fairness in Australia's tax system then the use of tax concessions by wealthy Australians should be considered.
"We have taxpayers in the top personal income tax bracket account for 2.7 per cent of the total number of taxpayers. But they also account for 55 per cent of the total capital gains income," Mr Shorten said.
"They are able to avail of a system where they're two-and-a-half times more likely to be able to claim tax concessions than other income earners."
Mr Shorten said the issue was not whether tax concessions were wrong or that there shouldn't be any in the tax system.
"I just wonder if our tax concessions are as well calibrated as they should be," he said.
"Is it fair that a very few people are able to avail themselves of a great deal of the tax concessional system? And other Australians avail themselves of very little?"
Modelling published this week by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) found that the poorest Australians would be hardest hit by increasing the GST to 15 per cent, while the wealthiest households would be relatively unscathed.
The modelling made similar findings for keeping the rate at 10 per cent but broadening the base.
Mr Shorten said on Friday "the government wants to put a blanket GST and increase the cost of everything".
But Mr Turnbull used his first major economic address on Thursday to warn against "picking off" one tax policy in isolation to others, pointing to the GST.
"The object of the taxation system is plainly to raise the revenue the government needs for its services it provides," Mr Turnbull said.
"But it must do so in a manner that backs Australians to work, save and invest - that backs them in rather than holds them back.
"That is why picking one of these proposals in isolation to others is always going to be misleading. I think you understand the point I am making there."
