Prosper Australia

The Gillard government today announced a levy on income taxes to pay for the Queensland floods: half a per cent on incomes over $50,000, one per cent on incomes over $100,000

Tax reform will turbocharge our economy. It will make Australia a genuine centre of excellence: a magnet for investment, for jobs, and a shining example to stunted and downtrodden citizens everywhere.

photo credit: djking To win the election, the new Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu pledged to phase in reductions in Stamp Duty by fifty per cent on real estate transactions under $600,000 for first home buyers. This is a very modest proposal.  Mr Baillieu’s incoming government has a blank page on which to write.  We urge [...]

photo credit: The Library of Congress Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked. Warren Buffett In the US housing bubble, banks and financiers gave a mortgage to anyone with a discernable pulse.  NINJAs (No Income, No Job, no Assets) were welcomed – as long as they could sign their [...]

photo credit: Fabrice ROSE The Senate Select Committee on New Taxes is pondering the implications of the Mineral Resource Rent Tax, holding a hearing yesterday in Perth. Here is a new tax measure that, even diluted for the election, will still raise over $10 billion a year. This is a beautiful tax: it doesn’t distort [...]

photo credit: Lucia. . . A secret map of Melbourne’s transport plans for the next 30 years was published in The Age yesterday. Doubts were raised about its authenticity (weakly, unconvincingly) by the Victorian government. Average householders may shrug, but this is a treasure map for property pirates speculators. “Here be Gold, mateys! Arrgh!” Knowing [...]

photo credit: itmpa Last week Treasury made public its Red Book – the economic advice it gives to the incoming government. In it, Treasury lays out a big, bold reform agenda.  On housing, the Red Book is scathing: “Access to adequate housing affects all Australians and is integral to a decent life. It is part [...]

Prof. Ross Garnaut gave the Hamer Oration at Melbourne University on Thursday. He pointed out that Australia has not experienced a recession for 17 years, a record for The Lucky Country. Such a period of unbroken growth is not just an Australian record, it is a world record. But one-way tickets have built-in risks for [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]