Government trials new welfare card

The Federal Government has begun trials of a taxless welfare card, with entitlements not allowed to be spent on paying tax.

The cards have been distributed to 8,000 of Australia's wealthiest beneficiaries of the taxpayer.

Payments to the card holders are then funnelled through a revenue placement network of shelf companies, foreign bank accounts and Panamanian legal firms.

The payment is then quarantined to a card to prevent it being spent on funding for health, education or the general benefit of anyone too lazy to set up their own off-shore tax minimisation scheme.

Funded by the government's lacklustre attitude to tax regulation and 4,700 job cuts at the ATO, the program is projected to save of up to $8 billion for non taxpayers.

The trial coincides with similar trials of the government's cashless welfare card - proposed by mining magnate, and seasoned tax-dodger, Andrew Forrest in his review of the welfare system in 2014 - and is part of the government's overall crackdown on welfare, in a serious attempt to address an estimated $8 billion shortfall in taxation revenue over the next few years.