And a good start would be for George Pell to pay back the $100,000,000 dollars that stupid john Howard setup and equally stupid Kevin Rudd didn't veto.

Tax all religious organisations - no problems, but why and how would any government tax atheists ? What have we ever done to deserve that ?

And presumably any organisation promoting atheism is already being taxed, since it would not be a religious organisation ?

Joe

What I could do if I had tax fee dollars to spend.

I could pay my legal bills with tax free dollars, if I knowingly harboured sexual predators.

I could buy up property and while this may not seem such an issue, for every property I buy with tax free dollars, its one less property on the market for the tax paying folk to choose from. A tax free benefit that drives prices up.

I could even make a profit on my property, then reinvest my TAX FREE dollars back into more property.

But, the bit that really gets up my nose is that much of that tax free wealth has come in the form of tax deductable donations. Donations that should have attracted taxes,and lets face it, our taxes are running on empty so we need all we can get.

We would all win if everyone was taxed.
The only possible way , is with an entirely unavoidable stand alone expenditure tax.
In a 1,6 trillion dollar economy, an unavoidable 18% expenditure tax would collect 380 billions.
Meaning all other tax measures could be jettisoned!
The first effect of this reform?
It wouldn't be necessary, to spend 7+% of the bottom line, as tax compliance costs!
Which could then be returned to the bottom line, to make the effective tax rate on Australian business, just 11% in comparative terms, or the cheapest in the developed world?
Given all tax avoidance would then just be impossible for anyone, be they 7 day Satanic or Scientology, the same thing?
Tax revenue would double and then double again.
This feature would sound the death-knell, of both the structural deficit, and social injustice!?
And as the huge ongoing surplus grew, the rate could be further reduced to around 5% variable; or less in real terms than former tax compliance/avoidance costs! Hallelujah.
Varying the tax rate microscopically, would alone control all inflation!
The complete repeal of all other regressive tax harvesting measures, including the ubiquitous cascading GST, payroll tax and fuel excise etc, would improve Australian based business, by as much as a further 30%; and household disposals by an estimated average of 25%.
This would mean a 15% non contributory super would be immediately doable, as well as a 10% rise in savings or economy stimulating discretionary spending!
All this, courtesy of current avoiders' and their finally collected tax contributions!
I kid you not!
Even so, plenty will be arguing most strenuously, for the status quo, or even more complex arrangements; or that we already have a broad based tax, called the GST?
Trouble with all that BS!
Most foreigners doing wholesale/distribution business and collecting price gouged profits here, don't pay it of most of our other tax measures, which now seem to fall most seriously, on those with the least, all while granting virtual billionaires, veritable tax holidays?
Time for a cool change!
Rhrosty.

Time for a cool change!
Rhrosty,
Flat Tax ! Earn a Dollar, pay 20 Cents Tax. All done ! Importers pay 20% import duty. Have a business overseas ?, Live overseas ! Bring a Dollar into Australia pay 20 % Tax.
You'd be surprised how many more people would live a life style on merit rather than exploitation of a stupid tax system.

I agree churches should pay taxes, but they should be taxed like other non-profit organisations, not like corporations. The estimates of revenue foregone in this article are high because they include payment of profits tax on church revenue.

But – they should pay capital gains tax, payroll tax, GST, rates etc the same as any other organisation.

'specially when research has shown a quarter of New Zealand children are living in poverty.

not rational enough for the rationalist to see their hopelessly flawed secular humanisn leads to the destruction of families and poverty. And to think he wants more money for the state to fund such bigoted and blind beliefs hidden by pseudo science.

I'm not sure what an expenditure tax is, but a financial transaction tax, is still a flat tax, but only it could be said to be as little as 2%, putting billions back in to tax payers pockets to be spent.

You see a TT taxes money, not people, so every single time money shifts from one account to another, the tax is collected whether it be a business, or an individual, so the most any one individual could ever pay, is $2 out of every $100 they spend.

Of cause the retailer/tradie/whoever takes money will also pay 2% out of every sale/job/transfer when they deposit the money.

If you pay from one bank account to another to pay a bill, out comes the tax. Same applies with all EFTPOS sales and for every dollar that is shipped off shore, the tax is taken out, because even if they take cash instead, the tax is taken when they withdraw the tax.

Total start again tax reform is the answer to our failing tax system but governments simply won't go there.

WHY?

An expenditure tax is virtually a flat tax.
It is similar to a transactions tax, but only taxes the expenditure side of any transaction, which then stimulates precaution and or, savings, and the curtailment of unnecessary expenditure.
The problem is collection!
And or the ability of some clever people to avoid paying a fair share of a common community burden.
Making the tax rate cheaper than the costs associated with avoiding it, makes perfect business sense, and encourages completely voluntary compliance; particularly as anything else would cost more!
Collecting it via the banking sector alone, also makes perfect sense, given all international remittances and or transfers, require the assistance of an official financial organisation.
Changing the ink in the printing presses to change the color of legal tender, would oblige those profiting from the black market or other illegal activity, to present to a bank, or a special branch, to exchange their old (soon to be worthless) money, for the new legal tender!
Which would then alert the authorities, on who to watch?
As we move to the inevitable cashless economy, most of this avoidance will simply be eliminated or vanish.
Bank mainframes are already programmed to take little bites from various transactions, reprogramming them to also collect our tax and transfer it overnight, to treasury, wouldn't require much more than a little new software, and done for us fee free by the banking fraternity, in return for a continuing banking licence!
For mine, I could live in a world, where everyone paid a small portion of all income as essential and only tax, which is then used to pay for essential service. No more GST, fuel excise, payroll tax, PAYE, PAYG, etc/etc!
If banks have a problem with that?
Then the creation of a new peoples bank would solve that, particularly if all the new money issuance, and any other Government guarantees, had to come from/through them?
An expenditure tax, would also end the need for complicated reconciliation, meaning instead of having to wait, up to a year, this money would be immediately available to consolidated revenue.
Rhrosty.

GST, fuel excise, payroll tax, PAYE, PAYG, etc/etc!
Rhrosty,
I go along with that & if anyone wants more money then make more money by all means & with my blessings but do not write things off tax, thereby letting the rest of us be stuck with the shortfalls such as the present system does.

Max, as you can see, your article founders on several false assumptions.

1. You can't just assume that taxation is automatically and necessarily more beneficial for society. If your foundational assumption was sound, then you could assume that a 100% tax rate was justified, which you don't, do you?

At this point you no doubt wish to resile from your foundational assumption, and argue for some lesser rate, but without having justified that, there is no need for me to disprove it. You've just completely lost the whole argument.

2. You can't just assume that the status quo tax rate is automatically and necessarily more fair than would otherwise have obtained. You make no attempt to establish what does or would make it fair, which again makes for a complete fail.

We are used to this kind of irrational uncritical aggressive state-worshipping behaviour from statists and socialists. But they disclaim the possibility of a rational understanding of economic phenomena. According to them, there is only "ideology": mere partisan claims for conflicting class interests.

We are entitled to expect better from a self-professed rationalist than an argument based on obvious logical fallacies.

I invite and challenge you to correct for the fallacies I have pointed out, and re-think and re-write your article without them. As it is you have not recognised or understood the issues you are talking about, which you can get a summary of here: http://mises.org/daily/2510

The thing the world needs now is growth.
An increase of just 2% would make an enormous difference.
And no, we don't need population growth to ensure growth.
Growth creates jobs, and improved cash flows.
Those improved cash flows come with increased tax receipts, or they should.
An unavoidable expenditure tax will end the possibility for some, to avoid a very reasonable share.
Every western style economy, rests on just two support pillars, energy and capital.
Putting either of those in private hands is a virtual recipe for eventual economic disaster, and or, parasitical whiteanting of either or both.
With the total privatization of our money supply, (banks) came things like mortgage securities, (as valuable as the emperor's new clothes) and equally worthless derivatives.
Other things that harm economies, include massive speculation, short selling, high frequency selling and market cornering of critical components, like say, energy!
This Mad Hatter, economic Pandora, needs to be put back in her box!
We don't and can't exercise very much control of foreign sourced fuel, but can exercise almost absolute control over our own, and yes without nationalizing anything!
However, we will need to get back into the energy business, even as just free market competitors, to force prices down and or, end price gouging; done, because they CURRENTLY can!
Labor also needs to be more flexible!
I mean, who gains if a kid is stuck at home collecting, around $5.00 an hour, when he/she could be earning three times that, in a real job, (stepping stone) with real work experience attached to it!
In the first instance everybody looses, including the tax payer
In the second example, the kid is gainfully employed.
And for a forty hour week, earning 31,200 a year; and indeed, actually paying a little tax at the lowest rate into the bargain.

Individual: I would worry too much about tax.
All we really need, is to ensure those not paying any, or just a fair and equitable share, begin to do so, free of the usual escape mechanisms, that have allowed this behavior thus far.
Rhrosty.