From: asparnique@gmail.com   
      
              Blatant discrimination by the Australian Government   
                               towards Australians living abroad !!   
      
   !! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !!   
      
   If you are interested to find out how NOT all Australian citizens are equal   
   before the law, or just wondering what happens in certain situations if you   
   decide to work overseas because of opportunities arising to further your   
   career, please read on . this is extraordinary by any standards !   
      
   Please consider this brief summary of our history that brought us to   
   Australia in the early eighties. Our family defected from a communist regime   
   of an eastern block country (no longer a regime in existence since 1989),   
   this while I was posted as a government official, the Trade Commissioner in   
   Indonesia, with the assistance of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Because   
   of this action, considered by the regime of the times as a form of treason,   
   I was subsequently sentenced in absentia to 7 years in prison and all our   
   remaining personal property was confiscated, since under the existing   
   communist laws of the time no citizen of that regime had the right to leave   
   or to return to his own country, contrary to the Universal Declaration of   
   Human Rights to which the eastern block was naturally not was not a   
   signatory to.   
      
   We arrived in Melbourne in October 1980 and after 9 months we both started   
   to work, my wife at the age of 37 years and I at the age of 47 years,   
   continuing to do so for the following 25 years up to the time of our   
   retirement. Three years after our arrival in Melbourne we did what most   
   aspiring middle-class family was doing then, built our own house in the   
   suburb of Mt. Waverley, and in 1983 thanks to our application for   
   citizenship having being granted, we became happily Australian Citizens   
   together with our children.   
      
   While my wife was working I worked briefly as a manager and a sell   
   representative until 1986, in which year I started my own business, an   
   importing & distribution company based in Melbourne. Both my wife and I   
   worked very hard to succeed in a new country with very little accumulated   
   wealth, basically a new life, all from scratch. I remember working even more   
   that 12 hours a day, most of the times without vacation, and making on   
   average 80 000 km a year on the road in order to visit my emerging clientele   
   in Victoria. Slowly I built that business until I was able to start   
   employing staff and starting from 1993 and later on, in 2003, our small   
   family business grew and expanded to all of Australia. My wife later joined   
   me till the time of the sale of the business which happened about five years   
   ago.   
      
   As my business developed I was able to take advantage of some changes to   
   local laws in the early 90s we were able to build a villa unit on the   
   remaining land of my property. When the real estate prices fell in the early   
   1990s I was able to purchase a warehouse both to store the company stock,   
   and as a form of investment for later on. This was not at all uncommon and   
   many ordinary Australians strived for the same goals in the land of   
   opportunities.   
      
   Australia was going through both economic and cultural changes in many ways,   
   changing from many points of view, to the better and for the worse as some   
   would say. We all enjoyed being Australians, proud of being Aussies. Of   
   course during this period it was difficult, as you can imagine, to not have   
   experienced some form of prejudice from certain elements of Australian   
   society - as most immigrant tend to experience from time to time in   
   Australia, to a lesser or greater extent, and with greater or lesser impact   
   on their lives.  It was unfortunate that it was our next door neighbours   
   that showed the most prejudice and xenophobia during this time.   
      
   The government took some measures to improve the industrial relations which   
   changed   
   alot the way business was done. Also the government took the decision to   
   change the way the pension is provided to aged people by applying an "asset   
   test". At that time and even today I considered this as being a progressive   
   social measure to benefit the people most in need, whilst reducing the   
   economic footprint on the Australian welfare system. As far as we are   
   concern we are glad to give up our yearly pension of $26 338 which we would   
   have had if we had passed the income and asset test, since we have worked   
   hard and were lucky to have acquired enough assets and income for retirement   
   after we eventually sold our business. At that time I was in my seventies   
   and my wife in her sixties, and we decided to stop working and moving to   
   Europe were we have 99% of our relatives, with only our daughter remaining   
   in Australia to this day.   
      
   Now here comes the crunch ! To our surprise when we lodged our tax returns   
   for the financial year ending 30 June 2009, our income tax liability more   
   than doubled because, according to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), we   
   have been deemed to be non-residents of Australia for income tax purposes,   
   and that no tax-free threshold is anymore available to non-residents.   
      
   We contested this information because, besides a no tax-free threshold, we   
   have been charged a flat tax rate of 30% for our small income earned in   
   Australia from our three properties, totaling no more than $24 500, instead   
   of the usual 15% being the tax all Australian citizens pay for their income   
   in that particular tax bracket ! In doing so the ATO have applied "The Tax   
   Assessment Act of 1936 and 1997" which effectively discriminates against   
   those Australian citizens who choose to move their residency to another   
   country, including their country of birth or any other. I cannot help seeing   
   this blatantly in complete breach of the Australia's commitment to uphold   
   the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights   
   (UDHR), to which Australia is a signatory to.   
      
   If you have a look at this Act you will be surprised to find out that there   
   is no mention of the Australian Citizens but only of "residents" or   
   "no-residents". Of course, in 1936 the majority of all the Australian   
   inhabitants were British subjects and it was only in 1948 when the   
   Australian Citizenship Act was approved by the Parliament. In fact even the   
   Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act adopted on the 9th of July 1900   
   does not mentions even once the world "citizen" or "citizenship", and as you   
   might know, a "Bill of Rights" was never adopted by an Australian   
   Parliament. In fact I am sure Australia is the only country from OECD that   
   does not have a "Bill of Rights". In our opinion the Tax Assessment Acts   
   1936 and 1997 do not respect the fundamental principle of the justice that   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)