Ah! Way to engourage people to earn more money :rolleyes:
HECS works well for youngsters starting off on a career path. It sucks majorly for mature-aged students (like myself) who return to study with high ideals of ‘making something of their life’ only to find life itself getting in the way.
With 4 kids and work AND going to uni, I found studying the ‘hassle’ that could be disposed of…it’s much harder to rid oneself of kids and working to put foods on plates etc. Because of that, I did not finish my degree. But I still have a HECS debt that is growing with CPI changes every year.
Without professional qualifications, I will never earn quite enough to justify paying back my HECS bill. The job I have at the moment hovers around the threshold, and it is in my best financial interest to make sure it stays just below.
Any more engouragement to offer 1920s Style "Death Ray? 
Not really fair. As I keep saying in this thread, nobody else really knows everything about another’s financial situation. That’s why you shouldn’t rely on anybody else’s understandings of your tax situation.
Or their moral judgements of it.
I think you misunderstand my post. It was a sarcastic comment aimed at the Australian Government for making it disadvantageous for someone with a HECS debt to earn more than $36,000. i.e., they are not encouraging kambuckta to earn more money. This is bad for Kambuckta and the government, which makes it very stupid and short sighted.
Yes, but as has been pointed out- if you owe a lot, you’ll owe a penalty. One should arrange things so that you get a small refund, say $200. The interest on $200 (if you deposited that $200 bit by bit equally over a year into a passbook account)- could be spent in a gumball machine.
Eonwe- jesuslynch is correct. Many expenses can be deducted without actual reciepts.
Oh, my mistake. :smack:
No worries :).
Heh. You should try it in the U.K.: 23% main tax rate, plus 17.5% VAT (sales tax), and something like a 300% tax on petrol (which really hits commuters).
But I did my tax this year and got a letter back saying I owed (approx) US $1. I mean, why bother?
When I did my taxes, I owed the feds a couple hundred, which is about where I want it. The kicker, though? I owed the great state of Illinois … $7.
It’s going to cost them more than that to process my check. 