Wagga City Council on Monday night joined a campaign for NSW to follow Victoria in offering a substantial payroll tax discount for businesses based in regional areas.

A business owner within Wagga council's boundaries had contacted council staff to explain that with 17 fulltime employees, he was paying an additional $28,000 per year in taxes just to employ people.

The state government placing 17 jobs in Wagga at risk to collect a measly $28,000 for the Treasury must surely seem like bureaucratic madness to the ordinary person.

The vast majority of people do not enjoy paying taxes.

Media mogul Kerry Packer famously told a Senate inquiry in 1991 that "if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax they want their heads read".

However, taxes are vital for supporting the services and infrastructure that society, and particularly a growing city like Wagga, needs.

In the case of payroll tax, the government can forgo comparatively little revenue by cutting the rates or lifting the total wages threshold in regional areas.

The government would probably make more money from other taxes due to increased economic activity.

In NSW, the current threshold in total wages for a business to start being levied on the payroll tax is $850,000, rising to $1 million by 2021.

Most small businesses in Wagga would be below or slightly above that threshold, so halving the 5.45 per cent tax in regional areas would be extremely affordable, especially given the state's budget position.

The great hope for a campaign to lower the payroll tax is not only to help small to medium-sized businesses but also help attract larger businesses to Wagga.

One of Wagga's strengths for investors, being about halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, can also put it at risk when Victoria, and its lower tax rates, are so close by.