photo credit: Grégory Tonon This week’s backdown by the federal labor government on the Mineral Resource Rent Tax will cost Australian taxpayers $35 billion over the next ten years. The shortfall in government revenues will be made up from taxes on work and taxes on business. That means it is coming out of your [...]
“Gillard must come out strongly and call the lobbyists for who they are. She must assert control over the RSPT rather than negotiate with each and every individual company.
photo credit: Schaffner Sometimes the ignorance of experts makes my blood boil. Why can’t they do the arithmetic, the sums plainly before them? The Victorian Transport Plan will cost $38 billion and produce benefits of $180 billion, according to a state-commissioned report by Ernst and Young. If these numbers are right, the Plan [...]
photo credit: loungerie The Henry Tax Review recommended a resource rent tax to the Australian government, carefully designed to maintain incentives and reward risk. The miners responded with apoplexy and a campaign of deliberate misinformation that has left the economically literate gobsmacked. Let’s get a few things straight. Searching for ore-bodies is not done by [...]
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: 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: 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: anarchosyn The Henry Tax Review’s highlighting of Land Tax as a policy direction is a welcome and encouraging development, says Prosper Australia. “This is THE tool to liberate the people of Australia from their current financial difficulties,” Prosper Australia’s Karl Fitzgerald said today. “Consider the enormous economic benefits this reform offers. “Taxing land [...]
photo credit: Cayusa Tax reform is hard for government: losers complain loud and long, while those who will benefit are suspicious and silent. We should be angry as hell about the tax system. It scoops up the earnings of the poor but merely nips at what the wealthy make. That’s why the Victorian Treasury [...]
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 [...]