By Peter Martin
AUSTRALIA'S middle-class welfare system is so big that it shifts us from being a high-tax to a low-tax nation.
An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report this week identified Australia as the third-highest-taxing of the OECD's 34 member nations in terms of the tax for a one-earner married couple with two children.
In 2010 the rate facing such a couple on the average wage was 20.4 per cent. Only Finland and Denmark charged more at 22 per cent and 23.6 per cent.
But when government payments and benefits - such as the dependent spouse rebate, baby bonus, private health insurance rebate and Newstart - were accounted for, the Australian rate fell to 6.6 per cent, the 10th lowest in the OECD. The rate has fallen from 17.4 per cent to 6.6 per over the past decade.