Food for Thought

they pay bugger all tax cause they are smart enough to use the system rather than sit on their bum and complain about it.

Soo... you're saying we should all use the system and avoid paying tax? Seems a great way to end up like Greece to me.

Correct me if I am wrong here
I did this complicated calculation for you and at $120/tonne we need to sell
$200 000 000 000 / 120 = 1,666,666,666 tons of our iron ore !

wait a minute, Where are production costs ?
If we do sell that amount is not all profit...since guy inventing Facebook need just a few beers to get imagination running...

We could now do next calclulations. Base on our knowledge that US soon approach 15 trillion dollars debt , How many new Facegoogle books need to relase to the world to pay off whole debt ??
15 (trilliions $$) /200 (billion facebook book value $$) = 75 college students!!

So now all US need is to take the bunch of college students to repay whole debt

Firstly, let me deal with your last point first... he he he... That's a Kevin Ruddism... Clive and Gina - did you hear this on Today Tonight, A Current Affair or 2GB? What ever the case, they are extreme outliers in the population. I have no idea of the tax affairs of these two people, and wouldn't pretend to. It's not fair to only name them though, what about Tinks and Twig

If you sample the distribution at six points, based on the salary bands, and the beers for these six people cost $100 (assume 2 beers each, unless you live in Perth, or drink at the Belgian Beer Cafe), the breakdown from our tax system based on percentage of tax paid would look like:

$0 ($0)
$6,000 ($0)
$37,000 ($12)
$80,000 ($21)
$180,000 ($28)
$1,000,000 ($39)

If you look at absolute amount of tax paid, it would look like:

$0 ($0)
$6,000 ($0)
$37,000 ($1)
$80,000 ($3)
$180,000 ($11)
$1,000,000 ($85)

Perhaps you are trying to say that it is not relevant to sample the distribution this way, and we need to look at tax contribution based on the whole distribution. Sounds easy... but, I can only find mean salary data, nothing on the standard deviation, variance or coefficient of variance... SHAME...

What is likely, is that the distribution will be close to normal (BTW, my favourite charts are PIE charts):



So, it is likely there are a greater number of contibutors around the mean, and thus the total tax take from these individuals (when considered as a whole) is not well represented by six point samples along the entire distribution.

It's not missing. It lies outside three standard deviations from the mean. In other words, extreme high/low values or outliers in the population.

Statistics and real life. As you could possibly track those hidding in upper part of "missing" .27% as super rich couldn't hide
there will be interesting to see those at very bottom or those .27% and how they do differ from each other.
Jobless and penny less .
If one have a pair of shoes and another watch found on the beach may jump outside .27% rank to those very privilege main stream 99.7 %
Whats more such symmetrical distribution suggest some equality between numbers of those super rich and those super poor....
I wish to was true...

Actors for presidents !

Everyones got aids.

Do you mean AIDS ?
You are possibly right, Now due to political correctness going mad to be elected president you must be:
-black
-women
-gay
-infected with HIV
-radical Muslim
-handicapped and Downs or blind do the best
-educated in useless subject like arts or law
and there are still plenty of candidates meeting above criteria to choose from ...

^^^SoG... That's not really where it got to...

How about posting some facts

It is fact that if you select individuals from across the population, and look at them relative to each other, as the story does, you come up with numbers just like in the bar stool economics story...

People who earn more, pay more.

no. im saying there are 2 type of people. those who do nothing and whinge, and those who are willing to do something about the situation they are in. sometimes you gotta do more than scratch the surface to get the full picture.
if more people did more, thered be more money in the economy. its not just taxes that keep australia afloat but business and people that get off their bum and contribute. think about it - if a business does really well, employs a lot of staff, but the owner of the enterprise pays little tax, but the employment of many circulates $$ into the economy (not just in tax), i say good on the business owner for helping the economy along.