A GST rate increase ?

A shiver down the spines of most citizens at the suggestion that there might be an increase in the rate at which the GST is levied !
There will be a Federal election later this year and both sides of politics have been circling the nation's hospital system with the view of a possible Federal takeover.
If that were to happen it would mean a complete renegotiation of Federal/state funding. The states could not expect the same level of Federal monies if one of their most expensive outlays - hospitals - was removed from the state to the Federal sphere.
And there lays the great divide ! To compensate for a Federal hospital takeover the states would need to relinquish about forty percent of the taxes raised and paid to them from the GST.
It is almost beyond belief that the states would give this the nod. Their track record on the GST is not impressive. When this tax was negotiated it was agreed that in return for a new source of income the states would reduce some state taxes and abolish others. They were given several years grace to implement this arrangement.
When that time came - they reneged ! They took the beggar's stance and claimed they simply could not afford to do without those state taxes - and so the public were subjected to double dipping.
The Treasurer has suggest - mischievously - that if Kevin Rudd were elected he would probably raise the GST from the present 10% to 14% to recoup the loss of hospital funds to the Commonwealth.
Rudd emphatically denies this - but the voters will hope that now the subject has been raised both sides of politics will set in stone a promise that under no circumstances will there be a change in the rate of the GST.
In that respect Australia is one of the few countries in the world to have kept it's GST promise. When the tax was introduced in most other countries it was accompanied by a solemn promise that the rate would remain unchanged - and that promise was broken within the first few years - and is now well over twenty percent.
Lets hope that both sides of politics leave the GST at ten percent !