Tim Pallas details COVID repayment plan; big business, private schools, government jobs in firing line

In 2023-24, the state government expects to bring in just over $89 billion in revenue, almost $5 billion more than its estimate for the same period from last year’s budget.

This increase is partly due to the newly introduced COVID debt levies, which are aimed at paying down the state’s debt pile (more on that in a post a bit later).

This graph gives a breakdown of some of the major sources of revenue, with the purple line representing last year’s budget and the orange line this year’s budget, so you can see what has changed in the outlook:

There are a couple of unpaired lines on the graph, both of them COVID debt levies. A new levy on landholdings is expected to bring in about $1.15 billion in the coming year.

There is also going to be extra payroll tax on businesses with national payrolls above $10 million, which is expected to rake in $836 million. The COVID debt levy on these businesses is on top of a mental health and wellbeing levy that was introduced in 2021.

You can see the additional taxation revenue expected to be brought in by the COVID debt levies over the next few years in this graph, which shows taxation revenue estimates from last year’s budget side-by-side with the estimates from this year’s budget. The amounts from the new levies are highlighted in yellow:

But there are some areas where the government expects to bring in less income. The cooling property market and fewer properties changing hands means that the Andrews government has revised down its estimates for how much revenue it will receive from land transfers in 2023-24 by almost $1 billion.

But all these sources of revenue pale in comparison to how much the state government receives from federal government grants, which are expected to account for about $42 billion next year.