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...
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Mining Democracy
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...
Use Rent to Pay Your Way: Dr Gavin Putland
When You've Paid Your Rent, You've Paid Your WayView more presentations from Prosper. Following Gavin's recent presentation, we thought those of you who missed it might find this of interest. Flick through the 6 slides according to the audio below. Our...
Scenarios for Australian house prices
photo credit: TerenceKearns.com Residential planning approvals fell another 6.6 per cent in May. No, this isn’t proof the housing bubble is over, but it hints broadly at that conclusion. I try to warn friends of the impending crash. They dismiss me as a Cassandra, or...
Gillard to Game Machiavellian Miners?
photo credit: Gary Denness Harold Mitchell, advertising supremo, summed up the mood that led to Kevin Rudd's downfall, as quoted in the AFR, 23 June: It is an 'amazing fact' that 'ordinary people on the street are barracking for five people...who have got so much...
Housing shortages? Really?
photo credit: looseends Saturday mornings at the Richmond market. I hear a fruit stall worker calling his wares: “Last of the carrots! A dollar a bunch! AND THERE’S NO MORE!” Of course, he has carrots by the boxful under the table, but his solemn warning means he...
Victoria’s Transport Plan a No-Brainer
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...
Aussie miners: no one likes a whiney child.
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...
Resource Rents to Balance the Playing Field
photo credit: Yuga. The government must focus on the rate of return between those who benefit from economic rents and those that are entrepreneurial. The Age reports today: ...a Senate estimates committee was told the average profit in mining was 37.1 per cent,...
Housing Data Beckons Fall
photo credit: funadium Yesterday's ABS release of a 14.8% fall in seasonally adjusted building approvals shows that property insiders understand that a crash is coming. If not them, then the banks curtailing credit for housing is another signal that housing is...