Prosper Australia

photo credit: ~Brenda-Starr~ Letter to the Editor – AFR 25/05/2010 Bryan Kavanagh, Glen Waverley Ross Garnaut and Ken Henry are undoubtedly correct about the benefits of the so-called super-profits ‘tax’ on miners. It’s actually a resource rent and acts vastly differently from a tax. Where taxes notoriously fine and destroy industry and production, natural resource [...]

Michael Hudson The Counter-Enlightenment, its Economic Program – and the Classical Alternative Based on a talk given to Prosper Australia on Friday October 16th, 2009. First published in Progress Magazine – Autumn 2010. Download Progress #1096 here. The last few years have seen Social Democratic and Labour parties fall into disarray throughout the world. Retreating [...]

photo credit: Ben Golub With Don Argus (former BHP Chair), Judith Sloan (former Santos Director) & Andrew Forrest (vested interest) banging their fists on the table this week, scaremongering the public – ‘How Dare They Threaten My Investments, My Profiteering from the Common-Wealth’, it was with great relief to see Ross Garnaut, author of the [...]

photo credit: jcarter   The Commonwealth of Australia was built on the sound principle natural resources are part of every Australian’s endowment. The Henry Tax Review recommended and the Rudd government has accepted a new tax system for mining that builds on this idea.  The Super Profits Resource Tax (SPRT) provides the community a share [...]

photo credit: Adam_T4 Michael Hudson and Shann Turnbull* 
            Confronted by the global financial crisis that is burying foreign economies deeper in debt deflation each month, Australia needs to protect itself – indeed, to liberate itself from as many costs and risks as it can. Fortunately, many of its costs and risks are unnecessary, merely [...]

photo credit: 10b travelling   Clear-eyed media commentary in the national interest is rare and sweet. Alan Mitchell’s analysis of the Henry Tax Review in the Australian Financial Review -  A tax on all your economic rents  – is such a creature. He opens with a broadside at entrenched interests pretending the changes will affect the economy: [...]

photo credit: Hexadecimal Time Letter to the Editor – Aust Financial Review Dr Terry Dwyer (Read Dr Dwyer’s Henry Review Submission) The Henry Tax Review has rightly acknowledged the fundamental economic principle that a tax on land (including resource) rents is the ultimate non-distorting tax. Whether a resource rent tax is the best way to [...]

photo credit: pfala Letter to the Editor THE AGE, MAY 4: Bryan Kavanagh, Glen Waverley WHEN an owner leases out his or her former business as a going concern, i.e. the freehold and the business, it is not uncommon for the net profit before income tax and depreciation to be split equally between the landlord [...]

  photo credit: raminders We follow the glitter of celebrities and our football teams and let others do the dull work of government. Our dreams are about homes, cars and holidays. But sometimes an issue is so important it deserves our undivided attention, if only for a short while. The big issue is tax – [...]

photo credit: Troy McClure SF Gavin R. Putland Published in today’s Crikey In contrast to the Henry report’s advice that payroll tax be eventually abolished (recommendations 55 and 57), the Rudd government has decided to increase its own payroll tax. No, really. Australia’s federally mandated, employer-funded 9% superannuation contribution is equivalent in every way to [...]