CANBERRA, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Government is set to pay off three quarters of its debt over the next decade, the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) revealed.
According to an analysis of medium-term budget trends released by the PBO on Thursday night, Australia's debt reached a peak of 340 billion Australian dollars (244 billion U.S. dollars), or 18.6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2017-18.
The analysis revealed that the debt is set to decline 74 percent to 88 billion Australian dollars, or 2.8 percent of GDP, by 2028-29.
It found that debt improvement was being driven by rising personal income tax revenue.
However, the PBO warned that 6 million Australians earning between 23,000 Australian dollars (16,553 U.S. dollars) and 64,000 Australian dollars (46,000 U.S. dollars) per year are set to take a tax hit in that period.
Even after the government passed a 144-billion -ustralian dollar (103-billion-U.S. dollar) tax plan, middle income earners will be pushed into higher tax brackets at 2.6 times the rate of the 2.6 million Australians earning 100,000 Australian dollars (71,960 U.S. dollars) per year.
"The second and third quintiles are projected to experience the largest increases in average tax rates over this period," the PBO said.
It means that an adult earning 66,000 Australian dollars (47,488 U.S. dollars) per year would pay an extra 1,000 Australian dollars (719 U.S. dollars) per year in tax by 2026.
The government in August decided to abandon its plan to cut the tax rate for the nation's biggest companies from 30 to 25 percent, a decision that the PBO said will save 35.6 billion Australian dollars (25.6 billion U.S. dollars).
