Larvatus Prodeo

Joni at Blogocrats has an anecdote about the ridiculous FBT exemption for company cars which actually encourages driving. It’s been discussed quite a lot in the media and the blogosphere – for instance, Peter Martin reproduced a Deloitte press release actively encouraging employees to drive. As well as the anecdotes, there’s this research paper, which conducted a survey suggesting a substantial proportion of salary-packaged cars are deliberately driven just to ensure that distance thresholds for FBT concessions are met.

The press gallery consensus seems to be that there’s likely to be a fair number of cuts in the federal budget this year, as the government tries to fund its various promises without expanding the budget deficit further. As such, it might be a good opportunity to kill off some badly-designed expenditures, subsidies, tax exemptions and whatnot, like this ridiculous FBT exemption, a long-time target of green groups.

While it’s unlikely to be taken up, killing off the private health insurance subsidy is one that comes to mind. And, while it’s small change in the context of the budget, I’d love the chaplains in schools program to go just on principle.

What else?