How Australia's $80 billion GST hurts some families far more than others

The federal government is facing yet another call to overhaul the GST, with new research outlining the tremendous amount of unfairness baked into the current system.

The GST is the federal budget's third-largest source of income, behind income and company tax .

For 2022-23, the ATO collected $81.7 billion of it; the last federal budget forecast that figure will rise to $94.1 billion this financial year, and again to close to $100 billion in 2026-27.

While ostensibly a flat 10 per cent rate on all goods and services sold, the number of exemptions on certain products means some Australians are paying almost 50 per cent more GST than others, even though they have similar spending habits.

The findings were published in a new report from the e61-UNSW Policy Research Partnership