Tag Archives: taxation

Should We Get Rid of the Company Tax?

The Commonwealth government has just gained support for a tax cut for business’s earning less that $50m per yr. The benefits of this change are debatable. The only things we can be sure of is that badly needed government revenue has been sacrificed and if anything, the administration of this tax will become more complex.

It might be smarter to get rid of this complex and difficult to administer tax altogether and replace the lost revenue by either increasing the take from already existing taxes and/or some new and simpler tax.

This post looks at the implications of getting rid of company tax. Continue reading Should We Get Rid of the Company Tax?

Fake news about company tax cuts

Ross Gittins says we have fake government rather than fake news, but it does appear that the political debate about company tax cuts has been inadequate and misleading, to say the least. In this post I take a look at what decent thinkers like Gittins, Craig Emerson, Ross Garnaut and others have had to say about the corporate tax cuts. Continue reading Fake news about company tax cuts

Saturday salon 24/9

1. Survey on Muslims

Probably the biggest story of the week was the Essential survey asking people whether they would support or oppose a ban on Muslim immigration to Australia. Overall support/oppose was 49% to 40%, with Labor voters 40-48, the LNP 60-31, the Greens 34-59 and Other 58-35. Essential were so shocked they ran the poll again, with the same result.

Just about everyone is shocked, including the higher than expected support amongst Labor and Greens voters. Peter Lewis, the Essential man, says he was floored by the result. He thought Pauline Hanson represented a rump, but not so. Continue reading Saturday salon 24/9

Saturday salon 4/6

1. Here come the Chinese

One million Chinese tourists account for 23% of tourist trip spend at $8.9 billion, an increase of 38% in the last year.

I’m not sure how excited we should get. I remember being told in Heidelberg Castle in 2008 that they got 4 million each year. In Prague the number of 70 million was quoted. Tourism here is small beer, but I wouldn’t like to live in that sort of melee. Our Brisbane Queen Street mall on Friday afternoon was pleasantly cosmopolitan. Continue reading Saturday salon 4/6

Turnbull’s tax train wreck

In what seemed like a thought bubble in a doorstop at Penrith Panthers Football Club, Turnbull announced handing back income tax powers to the states.

Julia Gillard left the Australian government with a few time bombs. The vision for schools contained in Gonski was fine and good, it just had to be paid for. So too the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the funding of decent hospitals as we age and get sicker.

It was too hard for Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott, so they snipped $80 billion over 10 years off the budget in the out-years. Turnbull agrees and wants to hand access to income tax back to the states. Continue reading Turnbull’s tax train wreck

Saturday salon 20/2

1. Morrison muffs his lines and Turnbull in trouble

Laura Tingle talking to Phillip Adams gave Scott Morrison 3 out of 10 for his speech to the National Press Club. We were promised vision and leadership when they turfed out Tony, now it looks like tinkering at the edges.

Teflon Turnbull had a bad week. Continue reading Saturday salon 20/2

More asset stripping of the aged

Carnell_c5fd8e72dc32fd006b3f0401f5998fda_220Kate Carnell, wearing her Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry hat, recently called for budget cuts to what it calls “runaway spending” on the aged pension, family tax benefits and childcare, lest we become an economic basket case like Greece. It contained this little gem:

A key part of the ACCI submission is to review the aged pension and to force retirees who own homes to transform the pension into a loan that would be repaid when the home is sold. Continue reading More asset stripping of the aged

Saturday salon 19/12

1. Almost 600 major corporations did not pay tax last financial year

Companies not paying tax include include Qantas, Virgin Australia, General Motors (owner of Holden), Vodafone, petrol company ExxonMobil, online betting shop William Hill, Warner Bros Entertainment, property developer Lend Lease and media company Ten Network Holdings. Continue reading Saturday salon 19/12

Saturday salon 30/5

1. Hockey in a tangle over tampons

On Q&A Hockey was asked by a young woman why pads and tampons should carry a GST while “condoms, lubricants, sunscreen and nicotine patches are all tax-free”. Of course economic orthodoxy says they should all be taxed, but Hockey agreed with her and has undertaken to put the matter to the states. Continue reading Saturday salon 30/5

Where to with tax?

Since John Davidson posted the Greens’ ideas on tax there has been a lively debate. Here I give some links to views I have found interesting.

John Quiggin has started his own tax policy review Rethinking tax policy for Australia, a work in progress with a proposal so far to tax the “immensely profitable” banks to the tune of $5 to 10 billion.

Quiggin’s Guardian article is essential reading. Amongst the points he makes:

  • The review itself is poor quality, adding little to the thinking of the Asprey Review of 1975. There are major omissions.
  • The government is hoping for an increase in the GST, achieved through some combination of higher rates and the elimination of exemptions. This isn’t going to happen.
  • “The fallback position, on which bipartisan agreement looks feasible, is a scaling back of the massive tax expenditures on superannuation. If that is the only outcome of Re:think, the exercise will have been a worthwhile one.”

Ben Eltham at New Matilda points out “reform” has become a dirty word. With this government it has come to mean mostly policies that are deeply regressive and unpopular. The government discussion paper on tax:

is the latest front in the Coalition’s neoliberal war on working Australians. It will fail for the same reasons the “reforms” to health and education failed: voters don’t want reform. They want high-quality public services, affordable housing, and a good job. They know companies aren’t paying their fair share, and they want them to pay more.

When will the government and business spinmeisters learn that “reform” is a massive turnoff for voters?

Clearly we need to pay more tax. The government’s way around this problem is to increase the GST. Peter Martin says that we should concentrate on captive sources of revenue:

The trick is to grab more of the money that’s bolted down and unable to leave the country, and less of the money that’s footloose. It’s anything but fair, but tax is about raising revenue more than it is about fairness, and we can’t raise revenue we frighten away.

So that means eliminating dividend imputation for shareholders, taxing superannuation and taxing people for owning property rather than buying it.

Don’t worry about the Googles, Microsofts and Apples. They’ll gravitate to the cheapest tax haven they can find.

Martin reckons that is we knock off dividend imputation the company tax could be reduced to 19 or even 15%. In any case it’s trending to zero.

Ian McAuley at New Matilda has a perceptive piece. He says:

Australia does need tax reform. There is even a case for increasing the rate and extent of the GST, but only if it is part of a comprehensive package aimed at collecting more revenue and making the whole system fairer.

But when tax reform is in the context of revenue neutrality, or even a reduction in overall taxes, and the message is that corporations should pay less tax while consumers pay more, the proposals are politically dead in the water.

McAuley is also not impressed with the notion that companies should pay less.

The regular World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Reports tend to show that business tax concessions are the inducement of last resort, offered by countries with low education standards, poor infrastructure and unstable government.

Perhaps Hockey’s push for lower corporate taxes is in realisation that Australia is becoming that type of economy.

So to sum up, the Government’s main strategy seems to be to hold Commonwealth taxes to current levels, or less, but to shove off responsibility to the states for hospitals and schools necessitating an increase in the GST

However, they say that a change to the GST needs to be bipartisan. Labor sees it as highly regressive and won’t have a bar of it. Similarly the LNP won’t go near a price on carbon or a mining tax. There does seem to be some consensus now that super has to be part of the equation. In itself it’s unlikely to be sufficient.

What the exercise does do is to put the wood on both major parties to come up with proposals to take to the next election that are coherent, understandable and make a difference.