A Proposal for Public Examination
10.33. The provisions of a regime for family unit taxation as an optional alternative to the existing individual basis would be a large departure for Australia, requiring substantial public discussion. The Committee has not suggested a rate scale if only because in this report, given the separate necessity to consider the existing scale and the variety of other proposals being made, no precise figures would be helpful. In any case, statistics of family incomes, and their distribution between individual members, would be required to calculate the effect on revenue. But the Committee emphasises the importance of the choice of scale, and the need, when one is proposed, to explain its effects on families in different situations and its relation to the individual tax scale, in a readily comprehensible manner. The Committee is persuaded of the equity arguments for providing an option that recognises the reality of one large category of family relationship better than does the individual basis, and therefore recommends that the Government prepare a detailed scheme for an elective family unit system for public examination.