FAMILY ALLOWANCES

We have in Australia a program called the Family Allowance Scheme. It is an outgrowth of another program called Child Endowment. The actual name is immaterial, of course, except perhaps to the lawyers and politicians. Regardless of what it is called, if you have children the government sends you money.

At the present time, 2003, the government will send the parents of any child under 15 the sum of $11.40 per child to help with the upbringing of that child. Let me round that down to $10 per child for the sake of convenience in this discussion.

Now, have you ever stopped to ask where the government gets this money?

You know where the government gets its money. It gets it from the taxpayer, sometimes known as the mug taxpayer. And, of course, unless you are in a box at Heavenly Hills, you are a taxpayer. You must be paying that tax, either through the PAYE system or through any one of the myriad other taxes and charges the government levies on you, the mug taxpayer.

So, every day, or every week, or every fortnight, or very month, and sometimes every minute, or so it seems, you or your employer or the place where you shop is sending money to the government.

And, assuming you have children, the government sends money to you.

In fact, it sends some of YOUR money back to you.

Do you think the government does that work for free!?!?!?!

You know it doesn't.

In point of fact, all government benefits come with an administrative overhead. And, the measured administrative overhead for government services has been shown by numerous studies to be approximately 30 percent of gross, or 50 percent of nett benefit. The actual percentage would, of course, vary, depending on the size of the benefit. A smaller benefit would typically incur a greater percentage overhead than a larger benefit.

So, in general, in order for someone to receive a family allowance of $10 per week, and remember, we rounded down for convenience, someone, i.e, the mug parent-taxpayer has to send the government $15 per week. In a word it is costing someone, i.e., parents, $15 per week per child gross in order to receive $10 per week nett per child, a loss of $5 per week per child.

You know who's doing that don't you?!?!?

In fact it is YOU, parent-taxpayers who have a job, and are not in Heavenly Hills.

So how many people are in this position?  

Next

Contact:  georgebl@iprimus.com.au