Every taxpayer in the country will get an unlooked-for cut under a $17 billion promise at the centre of this year’s federal budget, although will have to wait more than a year for it as the government attempts to balance the demand for cost-of-living relief with the need to manage a budget that is now firmly in deficit.
Today’s budget handed down by Treasurer Jim Chalmers shows the national accounts have, for the first time since 2022, fallen into the red.
The $27.6 billion deficit is worse by some $700 million than what was forecast just three months ago in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), but an improvement on the last budget’s prediction of $28.3 billion.
