The somewhat miffed business community is amazed that the Federal Government did not consult it on its crackdown on employee share schemes and instead went it alone.
So the big business lobby is gleefully awaiting a backdown from the Government. There is an expectation that ordinary middle-income earners will not be hit and that no-one has to pay tax until they receive the money derived from the shares.
If the Canberra jungle drums are accurate the Government will cave in to both these demands.
It will be an embarrassing backdown for the Government which, in an ideological sense, was doing the right thing.
The taxpayer should not be funding incentives for well-paid or lowly-paid employees of listed companies. The existing regime creates an unlevel field. The checkout operator at Woolworths can get a tax-effective incentive because the company is listed, the grocery packer from IGA can't.
But the Government is not planning to can the scheme based on fairness or ideology. It's about politics and revenue.
The tax-generating implications of the budget changes are not easy to quantify. The extent to which the existing arrangements have been rorted is another figure that has been used, or indeed rorted, to satisfy public relations outcomes, be they government or business.
But there are couple of things that are clear. The Government's move on share schemes was fiscally and politically motivated. It thought it was on a winner, to pocket some additional tax and send a message to the community that the fat cats were being hit in their hip pockets.
However, once it became clear that middle-income and lower middle-income earners were also receiving an advantage from the tax treatment of share incentive schemes, all that political mileage turned to liability.
The move was part of the broader tax attack on middle-class welfare, but one that appears to have failed - not because it is ideologically or fiscally wrong but because it's a political loser.
But what about the raft of reports, inquiries etc. into executive pay over recent months?
It all goes to the notion that pay policy is over-politicised.
The first was into executive pay principles in the finance industry and was being done by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. It was due for release yesterday but was mysteriously postponed.
It was expected to push for a shift from short-term incentives to longer term incentives linked to capital adequacy.
The impetus for APRA's review emerged when the banking system (offshore banking in particular) was seen to be teetering and the captains of the banking industry were jumping ship with bags of gold. The APRA deliberations were designed to address the fact that investment bankers were paid big short-term bonuses for long-dated deals and that this would enhance the risks they were prepared to take - thus explaining why the financial system is in chaos.
But the recommendations of APRA were not in unison with the measures outlined in the budget, so it's back to the drawing board for the financial regulator.
Next the Government went into battle over large executive payouts, which quite often were paid even when the financial legacy of the chief executive was pretty poor.
The Government decided to revise legislation to allow shareholders to vote on executive retirement benefits that were larger than a year's salary.
Remuneration experts claim there are gaping holes in this proposed legislation.
Last but not least, the Productivity Commission is undertaking an inquiry into executive remuneration. It will cover all businesses and not just those covered by APRA.
Once again there will be overlap, and once again the inquiry is politically motivated, but we won't see the product of its deliberations until the end of the year.
Over the past couple of months this Government has proposed a raft of confusing and overlapping studies or policies aimed at establishing that it will take a stand against excessive remuneration paid to business executives.
The political message is clear enough, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
