Male mining engineers, school principals, surgeons and anaesthetists will be the biggest beneficiaries of the high-end tax cut before the Senate, with men more than twice as likely to benefit as women.
The analysis, by the Australian Greens, comes ahead of a vote on the $4 billion cut which is supported by both the government and the opposition.
Backdated to July 1, high-earning Australians will benefit from an increase in the second-highest tax threshold from $80,000 to $87,000; worth up to $6 a week. Australians earning less than $80,000 will miss out.
The Greens' analysis, based on the most recent Tax Office data, finds the cut will help 28 per cent of male taxpayers, but only 13 per cent of females. Nine in every 10 surgeons will get the tax cut, but only two in every 10 nurses. Eight in 10 school principals will get the cut but only two in 10 classroom teachers.
The workers least likely to benefit from what the budget describes as "targeted personal income tax relief" are kitchenhands, checkout operators, childcare workers and waiters, each of whom has a less than one in 100 chance of getting a cut.
"The bill will deliver an extra $315 a year to the top 20 per cent of earners, including some of the wealthiest people in the country," said Greens treasury spokesman Peter Whish-Wilson. "Many are well beyond the group most affected by bracket creep."
The tax cuts would "cancel out" two-thirds of the $6 billion in spending cuts agreed to by Labor and the government in the aftermath of the election.
They began flowing to high earners on October 1, ahead of their passage through Parliament, a decision for which a spokeswoman for the Tax Office could find no precedent. Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan at first refused a request from Treasurer Scott Morrison to bring in the cut on July 1, saying he was only able to adjust tax scales in accordance with "enacted law". He backed down in September, saying public statements by both Labor and the Coalition had given him "confidence that it is likely Parliament will pass the amendments".
A Senate inquiry into the cuts is due to report on Monday.
Peter Martin is economics editor of The Age
