caneworm
There's no conspiracy theory here, it's going to happen.
Says who? You? Care to back this up with facts rather than just your opinion?
A simple change in the wording in the tax legislation, from Australian resident to Australian citizen may be enough to make life interesting for us.
First of all it will take more than just a simple change in the wording from “Resident” to “Citizen” to allow it to happen. Secondly I can count at least three times in the past when governments have discussed doing just this and it was advised to them by Treasury that the revenue raised would be far outweighed by the cost of trying to enforce it to make it worthwhile. Unlike the US that has several million of its citizens living abroad we only have several hundred thousand. If you then remove those that earn less than about AUD$85000.00 (yes that’s right, American expats that earn less than about USD$85000.00 abroad don’t pay world wide tax) and spouses who probably don’t work at all, you are left with a very small core of Australians you can actually tax. Lastly most Australian expats work in the UK where the tax rates are comparable to Australia. With a reciprocal tax treaty between Australia and the UK, how much tax do you thing would be raised?
Instead of proclaiming (several times now) that your an accountant and "she'll be right", perhaps you should be offering advice on how best to prepare for the worst whilst hoping for the best.
Now I am fairly fortunate. My wife has dual citizenship. If push came to shove I would drop my Australian citizenship in a heart beat if the Australian government tried it on. It should also be pointed out that, with the exception of HK most other countries will allow foreigners to become citizens when they have lived and worked there long enough. I doubt any Australian government would potentially risk loosing the huge tax windfall that is currently generated when Australian expats finally retire and move back home.