Residents in seat of Forrest to benefit least from tax breaks

Residents in the seat of Forrest will benefit the least in WA from proposed tax cuts if the Liberals win this year’s Federal election, according to new modelling.

The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling showed the seat ranked last out of WA’s Federal seats in all three key tax breaks announced in last week’s Federal Budget.

Residents in the seat will get up to $42 less extra than others when the low and middle income tax offset changes this year.

Changes in 2022-23 will benefit residents up to $68 less than in other electorates while there is a $379 less gap between how people in Curtin and Forrest will benefit from the 2024-25 changes.

Forrest MHR Nola Marino said the tax cuts would benefit thousands of people in the South West.

“The reason the average gain per person is lower in the South West is simply due to the demographics in the region,” she said.

“Due to the high number of retirees living in the South West there is a higher number of people without a taxable income compared to other electorates in the State.”

Bunbury MLA Don Punch said he believed the differential could be better attributed to the gap to residents in the seat often working in low income jobs.

“We’ve certainly got a big demographic of older people and retirees but a lot are using aged care services and there are a lot of aged care workers — they’re all on low incomes,” he said.

“Those people miss out.”

Mrs Marino said the Government was not ignoring low income earners in the region.

“More than 60,000 low and middle income earners in Forrest will benefit from income tax relief from the proposed tax cuts,” she said.

“More than 16,000 small and medium businesses in Forrest will also benefit from tax relief.”