Australians will pay more than $10 billion in interest on Malcolm Turnbull’s top end income tax cuts, new calculations reveal.

Opposition analysis shows that Australians will be slugged $10.3 billion more in interest payments for Stage 2 and 3 of the Liberals’ personal income tax cuts than if that money went towards paying down their record debt.

That equates to more than $415 for every man, woman and child in the entire country.

Workers on low and middle incomes will be disgusted to learn Turnbull and his Liberals expect them to pay the interest on billions of dollars of tax cuts going to those who need them least.

First the Liberals held modest tax relief for low- and middle-incomers earners hostage to the top end tax cuts in seven years’ time, and now they expect ordinary Australians to foot the extra interest bill as well.

And that doesn’t include $8 billion in extra interest on the Liberals’ $80 billion corporate tax handouts, amounting to a whopping $18 billion top end tax cut interest bill.

This hammers home yet again the out-of-touch and out-of-whack priorities of Turnbull and his Liberals.

They already want to give an $80 billion handout to multinationals and the big banks, most of which will spray around offshore in the form of executive bonuses, share buybacks and puffed-up dividends for overseas investors.

Under the Liberals, net debt has doubled, gross debt has crashed through half-a-trillion dollars for the first time in the country’s history, and both kinds of debt are growing quicker in good global conditions than under the former Labor Government, which had a global financial crisis to contend with.

Labor will not only give working Australians a bigger, better, fairer tax cut, but will manage the nation’s finances in a far more responsible way than the Liberals as well.​

Note: Calculations based on not proceeding with Stage 2 and 3 from PBO submission to Senate (link), and uses rate of future issuance of 2.8%, as published in the Budget [p7-14].

Interest is paid for the full year on the start of year debt (Interest on stock).

To fund the annual cost of the tax cut, debt will be progressively issued through the year in equal amounts. Interest is paid after debt is issued (Interest through year).

SUNDAY, 24 JUNE 2018