The Government has proposed a 10-year program of business tax cuts, beginning with a cut to a 27.5 per cent rate for companies with an annual turnover of less than $2 million.
Mr Turnbull's claim is close to the mark. The Labor Party cut company tax when it was in government between 1983 and 1996. At the 2010 election, the Gillard Labor government promised to cut company tax if re-elected. When in government, senior members of the Labor Party including Bill Shorten made the same sorts of arguments that the current Government is making about company tax cuts: that they boost investment and job creation and make Australia competitive with other nations. Mr Shorten himself criticised a proposal from the Greens that would have seen the money for "big business" tax cuts diverted to health and welfare spending. Today's Labor Opposition does not merely argue that company tax cuts are unaffordable. It now ridicules the whole concept as "wasteful", "flawed", "trickle down economics" and a "giveaway" that will have a "negligible effect on job creation". The Gillard government argued that its tax cuts were affordable over the forward estimates, paid for by proceeds from the Minerals Resource Rent Tax in the context of a budget that was to return to surplus by 2013. Similarly, the current Coalition Government says that its tax cuts are affordable over the forward estimates. It bases its calculations on assumptions and projections that may ultimately prove as inaccurate as those relied on by the Gillard government.
Fact check: Did Labor previously make the same arguments as the Government on company tax?
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