Month: February 1993

The T-shirts carried the slogan: “”My Daddy loves me because I’m a tax deduction”.

Though tongue in cheek, the slogan expressed the stereotype. Slobby man not taking much interest in the kids education and care, but just in the money.

This week’s child-care cash rebate, might not change the attitude of fathers (other social changes will do that), but it is certainly a big change in government and bureaucratic thinking.

The claims by (mainly) women to get some sort of equality and justice in the tax system go back a long way.
Continue reading “1993_02_february_child”

There is a superficial similarity, but some crucial differences between the Canadian goods and services tax and the GST proposed by the Opposition.

The similarity is that the tax burden is shifted from income to consumption and that the tax replaces wholesale taxes. This means that exports are no longer taxed, and in theory it encourages saving.

Canada introduced a 7 per cent GST in January, 1991. The Coalition’s tax is set at 15 per cent.

The essential differences are that Canada’s tax is administratively more clumsy on two counts and is easy to avoid on two counts.
Continue reading “1993_02_february_cantax”

A fire destroyed a demountable classroom at Beechworth Primary School in 1960. It was one of several temporary classrooms most of which were still there when I was last in Beechworth some thirty years later.

Anyway, Grade 4 spent half the year in the Congregational Church Hall where Mr Bernaldo struggled away with long division, üThe Pioneers by Frank Hudson from the Victorian Education Department’s üA Fourth Reader, and what was called the Cursive Script.

It was called “”Grade 4”, note.
Continue reading “1993_02_february_bworth”