BLOG: tax reform

Will Company Tax Cuts Trickle Down or Trickle Up?

Will Company Tax Cuts Trickle Down or Trickle Up?

By Catherine Cashmore The proposal to cut the company tax rate from 30% to 25% has received much media attention. We are repeatedly told it is needed to boost investment.  The rational follows that companies are more likely to invest in productivity if they don’t have...

A Land Tax for the Top End?

Amid recent GST distribution cuts of $400m p.a. (about 12% of revenue) and a flagging property market, the Northern Territory Government is facing severe fiscal challenges. The NT is the most stamp duty reliant government in the federation, and has been hard hit an...

Leadership is more than presiding, Gladys

Economist Peter Abelson has dropped a bomb on Sydney’s madly expensive land market, asserting the usual demand and supply equations have little influence on prices while major positive benefits are available from ending Stamp Duty and using land tax. His views only...

The fragrant vagrant is not a rose by another name

The fragrant vagrant is not a rose by another name

Melbourne City Council is wringing its hands again over developer land vagrancy – prime sites deliberately held vacant or with disused, dangerous buildings to assist developer lobbying of government for rezoning or advantageous building permits. The issue last hit the...

The Metricon Judgement

In March last year, the NSW Supreme Court set aside the NSW Office of State Revenue’s assessment for land tax in 2009-13 on certain lands at Terranora in the Tweed Valley held by Metricon. The developer bought the $60m aggregation to subdivide for residential use. It...