With the stock market taking a big breather from selling off (with the S&P/ASX 200 Index up 5.5% in two days giving us a sneak preview of what will happen to share prices once inflation looks done and dusted), let’s look at the simmering political hip-pocket issue of the so-called stage three tax cuts that the Greens and others want to kill.

News coverage quoting Green’s boss Adam Bandt had him portraying these tax cuts for “the rich” or “the wealthy”, even asking how could we give the likes of Clive Palmer a $9,000 tax-cut?

Using Clive was a neat trick to make many of us see these as tax cuts for the rich, but is this true?

These tax cuts from a previous ScoMo and Josh Frydenberg budget are set to kick-in in 2024, but are they only for the rich? And will they be good or bad for the overall economy?

The Australian says 2.5 million Aussies will get substantial tax relief from these cuts in the tax rates, but if Greens and others (including some Teal independents) have their way in cancelling them, 2.5 million taxpayers will lose thousands of dollars.

This will be a big story for the October 25 Budget, and there’s pressure on Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers to drop these Coalition-created tax cuts from the likes of union boss Sally McManus, who this week called them “grossly unfair”.

But the argument primarily gets down to this question: “Who is wealthy?”

Here’s what calculating done by The Australian discovered: “…A wage earner on $120,000 would be $1,875 worse off in 2024-25 if the final tranche of tax relief is scrapped, while a worker earning $160,000 would be $4,675 worse off. A household of two on $120,000 and $80,000 would be collectively $2,750 poorer.”

According to Acoss: “The middle-income earners typically comprise couples with children living off one full-time job and a part-time wage. The middle 20%, generates an average weekly income of $1,884 ($97,986 pa), the report stated. Here, the couple is essentially raising dependent children with one partner earning about $85,000 pa and the other an average low of $30,000 pa. Such households are likely to maintain a fair asset base.”

These people are in the group who are probably reeling under the pressure of six interest rate rises in a row. By 2024, they could have had a few more to cope with, so those tax cuts would come in handy.

Of course, if they were to be delivered now, economists like me would argue they would hurt the fight against inflation, but, in 2024, the economic outlook is likely to be softer after two or three years of interest rate rises, so they could be a help to the economy, let alone middle-income families.

ANZ’s head economist David Plank told The Australian he expects the Oz economy to be weak in 2024, which Treasurer Chalmers will find hard to ignore.

I liked this from EY’s chief economist Cherelle Murphy, who said that in two years’ time handing back tax to workers “could feel a lot more sensible than it does right now”. Usually, tax cuts are spent rather than saved and by 2024 the economy might need spenders rather than savers, and it might not be a great look for the Albanese Government to have welched on tax cuts for the biggest group of swinging voters (the middle class) a year out from the next election.

If I were Jim Chalmers, I’d delay a decision on these cuts until he sees what the economy looks like in 2023 and what it should look like in 2024. An early decision could make him a two-time loser — losing political support and losing tax cut stimulation for the economy he's going to be judged on at the next election.