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The Forum > Article Comments > A fictitious Federal Budget speech > Comments

A fictitious Federal Budget speech : Comments

By Gavin Putland, published 23/8/2012

As politicians and industry lobbyists argue about how to reduce the rate of company tax, here's a proposal to abolish it.

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There is no magic in unavoidable. Suggest you both read and understand the irrefutable maths I've provided.
I was part of the 87% who disagreed with the GST, which rather than reform, was simply Granny killing revenue surety, merely masquerading as reform.
It simply transferred tax responsibly from those, who could afford it, onto the backs of those who couldn't; and, added yet another level of complexity!
[At some point complexity becomes fraud. Quote unquote.]
And entirely off topic!
Nor do I see or agree with, that there's any incongruity whatsoever, in advocating equal rights for those, who dare to be born different. Every Human Being extant on the planet, has an inherent right to pursue their dreams, love, genuine happiness and physical affection.
I know of no heterosexual, who has chosen to be straight or "normal"!
Nor do I know of any "normal" heterosexual, who could chose to be otherwise, or engage in homosexual practise, without a loaded gun held to the head. Even then, the skin would fairly crawl!
That being so, it's hard to reconcile a view amongst a diminishing minority, that there is any element whatsoever; of choice, in homosexuality.
In fact, if one knew of all that homosexuals have to go through or are subjected to, one would simply understand; that there's basically no element of choice on homosexuality, just naturally occurring aberrations.
We all of us start our existence in the womb, as female foetuses.
Hormones produced; or not, by the mother, determine whether we are born male or female.
Sometimes this process is incomplete? And or, produces the natural aberrations, we refer to as bisexual, gay or lesbian!
[Genetics seem to play no part, nor does the environment or family composition?]
I simply chose not to blame the victim of this process, whenever it's incomplete or overdone?
Nor do I believe anyone has an inherent or God given right, to discriminate, or deny other's the basic human rights, we simply take for granted!
My usual logic isn't limited to, essential overdue real tax reform or economic practise!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 23 August 2012 5:14:42 PM
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Rhrosty mentions two kinds of tax avoidance. One uses inflated "transfer pricing" of purchases from related entities in foreign tax havens. The other uses losses on foreign investments. A border-adjusted VAT has neither of these loopholes because the "border-adjustment" disallows input credits on purchases from overseas.

The flip-side of "border-adjustment" is zero-rating of exports. Hence, if a country has a VAT but no corporate income tax, it provides a tax haven for exporters without compromising the revenue base: by design, a VAT doesn't tax export income except to the extent that people spend it on consumption.

Does my proposal also address domestic tax evasion? Yes -- NOT because a VAT is more immune to fraud than the alternatives, but because, if you replace several taxes by one tax, the ATO's compliance resources are not so thinly spread.

Rhrosty notes that in 2002-3, Australia's "total unavoidable recurrants" were $6.785 trillion. As this figure is more than 8 times GDP for that year, I infer that inputs are not deducted from outputs, so "recurrants" [sic] mean turnover (or perhaps turnover processed through banks). Hence what Rhrosty calls an "expenditure tax" is a turnover tax (or perhaps a debit tax). A turnover/debit tax is a reverse tariff: it hits domestic transactions involved in producing exports but not foreign transactions involved in producing imports.

In conventional terminology, an "expenditure tax" is a consumption tax implemented through the income-tax machinery, using the fact that consumption equals income minus saving plus dis-saving. The claimed advantage over an indirect consumption tax (VAT or retail tax) is that consumption, if assessed through the income-tax machinery, can be taxed at progressive rates. My proposal to let employers keep PAYG income tax while remitting a VAT is an alternative method of switching to a consumption base while preserving the progressivity of the existing income tax. So it does not, as Rhrosty puts it, shift the tax burden "from the better off, to the worst off".

Other components of the proposed "budget" remove taxes that discourage building. This can only improve affordability of housing.
Posted by grputland, Thursday, 23 August 2012 5:21:53 PM
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Well Rhrosty,

…The fan-base for your stimulating posts thins by one on “this” off-topic subject…maybe on another day and on another thread, the fog which shrouds your thinking will lift, under an uncomfortable influence of the hot westerly wind of reason!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 24 August 2012 7:35:27 AM
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I think one of the issues here is the hierarchy implied. Site value rental is best applied at the local government level - arguably the most under-resourced but most accountable level of government. If SVR was collected at the local government level as the primary / sole source of funds for government at all levels I think citizens would feel in control of the application of the funds they contribute to receive government services. In order to receive services that were difficult to coordinate at a local level it would be necessary for local governments to contribute to the next level of governance on a per capita basis. The next level could be national, as in the U.K., or state as in Australia and the U.S.

There are obvious flaws, particularly in the U.S., in devolving decision-making to the local level, particularly in the supply of education services. U.S. public schools are a tragedy due to the lack of national coordination of curriculum. However, an inversion of the power structure would make distortion of decision making by oligarchs considerably more difficult.

Representative local government funded by SVR contributing to regional / state / national levels of administration would put most decision making in the hands of my local government representative (acting in collaboration with / opposition to other local representatives). Local representatives would nominate / elect representatives to the next level of governance, but that level would be directly responsible to the nominating local governments and therefore likely to be more directly accountable for their actions than occurs now, where state and federal politicians are directly manipulated by unaccountable oligarchs whose agendas are usually inimical to the interests of the local electors.

I recognise that the relative benefits of local versus national power have been debated as long as there has been representative government, but the unprecedented universal failings of national governments in the OECD version of the world in the last 20 years has made the issue a matter of personal and biospheric survival instead of an interesting topic for discussion at the pub...
Posted by RegT, Friday, 24 August 2012 10:31:14 PM
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