photo credit: Urban~Spaceman Miners finally agree to tax reform. What are the changes? The attempt to harness economic rents for the public good has been renamed from the Resource Super Profits tax to the Mineral Resource Rent Tax. The MRRT kicks in at the corporate bond rate plus 7%. That is 12%, rather than the [...]
photo credit: UGArdener This morning, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glen Stevens appeared on Seven Network’s Sunrise program to talk up interest rates and talk down the property market. Using tabloid television to broadcast RBA views is unprecedented. It prefers to communicate via densely written statements, opaque economic speak and background briefings to senior [...]
You’ve got to love real estate spruikers. They are so consistent and always so wrong. David Morrell purports to be a buyers’ advocate. On 5th March in The Age he was saying how you can’t go wrong with “land banking” in Toorak. Well maybe. Land banking is the quite revolting activity of buying up desirable [...]
photo credit: Ravages by Gavin R. Putland If the Australian economy has come through the Global Financial Crisis in such fine shape, why do we have an official unemployment rate over 5%, and a real unemployment rate two or three times higher? Why aren’t there enough opportunities to go around? Conservatives tell us that we [...]
photo credit: Omar Eduardo Taken from an early 1900′s document I don’t know what the country is coming to; I work from morning till night every day of my life and yet it’s as much as I can do to make ends meet. I am Simply Working for the Landlord ! ! ! How often [...]
Since the Howard government gained control of the Senate, we have been hearing numerous proposals for reducing the top marginal rate of income tax. The excuse is that high marginal rates reduce the incentive for wealth creation and encourage tax minimization. Let’s put this excuse to the test. A holding tax is a tax of [...]
SPIN: The Family Home is exempt from land tax. (And all the people shall say: Amen.) FACT: If home buyers don’t have to pay land tax, they can afford higher mortgage repayments, hence higher prices. While the price of a house is limited by the cost of construction and by competition among builders, a home [...]
The Howard government’s industrial relations agenda attacks the wages and conditions of workers as if this were the only way to reduce the cost of hiring. What about the administrative costs imposed by government? For example: If you become an employer, you must also become a tax collector and tax agent, deducting and remitting pay-as-you-earn [...]
A rental property is said to be negatively geared if the owner’s expenses (including mortgage interest and maintenance) exceed the rental income, so that the property makes an annual loss. If the tax system allows negative gearing deductibility, that loss can be deducted from other income for tax purposes. Abolition of this deductibility, loosely known [...]
Who are the real winners and losers under the Howard government’s industrial relations reforms? We think you can work it out for yourselves. Here are some hints: 1. If workers in firms with less than 100 employees have lost their protection against unfair dismissal (not to be confused with unlawful dismissal), and if all other [...]