Posted: 8:00 am on 14th May 2012
The Gillard government has reneged on its promise to reduce the corporate tax rate by 1% – a cut that was part of the package to secure the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT). Although this backflip will surely anger the business community, there are far bigger problems affecting the bottom lines of Australian businesses. Many small business owners cite a strong dollar, growing regulatory burden, and inflexible labour laws as…
Posted: 8:00 am on 13th May 2012
It is just a little more than two years since the review of Australia’s Future Tax System (AFTS, better known as the Henry review) was released to the public, with its 138 recommendations. The Gillard government, notwithstanding its enthusiastic embrace of an audacious 40% resources super profits tax at that time, was lukewarm about the Henry package as a whole. Eager to burnish its economic reform credentials, the government now…
Posted: 8:00 am on 12th May 2012
The federal government’s stated motivation for returning the budget to surplus next financial year is to give the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) ‘maximum room to move’ on interest rates. Yet a fiscal contraction is no more effective in restraining the economy than a fiscal expansion is effective in stimulating it. In an open economy with a floating exchange rate and an inflation-targeting central bank, changes in fiscal policy do…
Posted: 8:00 am on 23rd April 2012
An idea winning some popularity around the world is that candidates for high political office should be required, either by law or by peer pressure, to disclose their latest tax returns. Such disclosure has long been a ritual of US presidential election campaigns; it is the practice in some other countries; and recently British politicians have come under pressure to follow suit. Prime Minister David Cameron has already conceded the…
Posted: 8:00 am on 25th March 2012
As the federal government celebrates the parliamentary endorsement of Australia’s second major new tax in recent months – the minerals resource rent tax – it is appropriate to reflect on the fact that around the world, the last few years have been depressing times for advocates of tax reform consistent with limited government, incentive and individual liberty. One key indicator of a country’s commitment to these principles is its top…
