The Cohen family, holders of The Block Arcade in Collins Street Melbourne, must meet a massive rise in State Land Tax after the Valuer-General’s biennial land revaluation. Their 2017 tax bill is $450,000, up from $30,000 last year. According to the AFR, the Cohens...
BLOG: Commentary
Oz lottery: Win $85 billion in Stamp Duty reform
Peter Martin, Australia’s clearest economic writer, has turned his icy gaze to Stamp Duty. This vile tax causes real harm to all of us and begs to be struck from the statute books. Yes, it is a state tax. Yes, the feds can push reform along and add $85.5 billion to...
“Poverty is the mother of crime”
What did Marcus Aurelius mean when he said “Poverty is the mother of crime”? Surely he wasn’t trying to justify crime? The vast majority of poor people keep on ‘the straight and narrow’ without turning to crime? No, he wasn’t justifying crime; he was simply being...
Australia’s democracy destroyed – for thirty pieces of silver
Matthew Stevens, the AFR’s kindly mouthpiece for big miners, is today promoting a range of very bad ideas that suit his, ahem, audience. The article is paywalled from sheer embarrassment. He lauds the political destruction of WA Nationals’ leader Bernard Grylls for...
Who will fight Oil & Gas in Australia’s national interest? The boxing ring is right here…
Craig Emerson, principal architect of Australia's Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, is out in the AFR today fighting for good taxes and sound economics. For thirty years, the PRRT had been a successful revenue-sharing device, delivering well over $33 billion to...
Real estate is no market
Well, it certainly looked like a market today: all those people assembled at the auction, wanting to see what that four bedroom, two bathroom brick veneer house with a double garage was worth. Near new; attractive and efficient layout; sitting nicely on a well...
NSW fire services to be funded by the land
The NSW government is reforming how it funds fire services, removing the charge on fire insurances and introducing a land-based levy. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet says: “Eliminating the old (Emergency Services Levy) is expected to reduce insurance costs on...
Eureka! The Black Dragon has an epiphany
Louis Christopher of SQM Research – aka Black Dragon - has seen through the maze of deceit to properly identify the national interest and yesterday published Five Solutions to Housing Unaffordability Crisis. His prescription is simple: cut immigration, grow in the...
Report Insights on the UN’s Financialisation of Housing
The UN Special Rapporteur’s Report into the financialisation of housing delivers a damning indictment on the worldwide commodification of housing. The report investigates the state of housing globally, the current economic policy trends to control and shape...
Why economies are failing
The Real Excess Burden: an overarching approach By Bryan Kavanagh Disclosures I'm not a fan of economists who are able to equate the rent flowing from land with the returns to manufactured capital without experiencing a frisson of self-reproach. That income from land...