“If government spending was halved, this would allow taxes to be almost halved as well, leaving a modest surplus to pay down the Government’s appalling debt.”

Hear! Hear! But instead the debt keeps rising and things get steadily worse under the dead hand of government. But “help secure ongoing foreign investment”? First we have to work out what foreign “investment” is; and one thing it is NOT is selling land and ports off to the Communist Party of China. China is no friend of Australia's, and using our land as a second farm is not investment: it's all about China,and the time could come when China feels the need to 'defend’ its stake in Australia, with the help of a burgeoning number of 'overseas Chinese’ that we foolishly call ‘Chinese Australians’. They are no more Australian than their despotic president-for-life is.

“We should abolish alcohol tax”. I don't get that one! Perhaps the senator has a special relationship with alcohol, which could explain some of his wilder ideas. Taxing unnecessary and dangerous drugs even more could take the pressure of essential goods and services. There was a bit of bad news for the senator and other boozers on the news last night - the Nanny State is thinking about increasing tax on grog as a measure to combat obesity. A load of rubbish, of course. Addicts won't give up their favourite drug just because the price goes up. Families will suffer, unless the corresponding rise in booze tax is removed from essentials. Fat chance of that happening though.

As an aside, the senator is wrong when he says that “Low levels of alcohol consumption are not harmful”. Any amount of alcohol is poison to the human system. We will soon be seeing ads like the ones harping about smoking.

But, overall, the senator is in the wrong job if he seriously thinks that lowering of taxes - and tariffs to protect what's left of Australian industry - by an increasingly avaricious political class will be ever anything but his own imaginings.

Agree! Top tax anyone need pay is 15% as a flat tax that every boy and his dog pay.

Always providing their income is above a reasonable tax-free threshold. And taken as an unavoidable burden against all profits/income or earnings, derived or earned here! regardless where HQ is or the location of the parent company And on all income earned before deductions to service alleged debts to said, parent.

This totally unavoidable feature would allow all tax compliance costs to be rescinded and returned to the bottom line, as an averaged 7% improvement!

After that our charity need to be reserved for the needy and clawed back from the greedy. All school fees and hospital admissions should be the responsibility or the user. And where genuine hardship established, supported beneficiary directs to competing providers, who will need to focus solely on outcomes rather than simply providing expensive or padded procedures paid for by a means-tested endowment the beneficiary directs!

Finally, outlawing middlemen paper shufflers fro any transaction be it public or private will effectively halve the cost of living or doing business in this country!

After real tax reform, we are left with formulating an energy policy and framework the envy of the entire world.

I say this because I know with the right leadership, it would be an entirely achievable goal! On both counts, and if done as already described elsewhere. Not only drought proof the country but turn permanently arid wasteland into highly productive gardens of Eden.
Alan B.

Today's submission was edited and corrected by Grammarly Along with the jumble it makes by inserting half-finished sentences into other completed ones above. Turning the entire essay into gibberish!

Such a boon for the partially sighted and sure to get the average pensioner off the free model and on to the fee-charging gold plated model?
Alan B.

I think a better idea would be make the banks and other corporations like Google, Facebook, Amazon etc also the mining companies to pay the taxes they don't pay.

While we are at it no private citizen can have a trust fund where they hide their money (a few politicians have them)also if they have a trust fund it is checked very carefully.

It appears David Leyonhjelm is not very good at engaging the electorate or voters, I have looked at a number of articles he has posted here then went to the comments I could not find one he had replied too.

He has at a guess around 80 articles

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=6583

David Leyonhjelm As stated above try starting here. No start with the International companies, sure the tax dep't can tell you who they are.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/one-in-four-of-australia-s-largest-companies-paid-no-tax-last-year-20181213-p50m0i.html

One in four of Australia's largest companies paid no tax last year

One in four of Australia's largest companies paid no tax last year, but many are tearing through their losses, setting up a multibillion-dollar windfall for the Morrison government ahead of an election-year budget.

The new tax transparency figures, released by the Australian Tax Office on Thursday, show the Commonwealth Bank is the nation's largest taxpayer with $3.9 billion handed over in 2016-17. But digital behemoth Atlassian and energy giant Origin paid no company tax at all as they offset their bill through losses and tax concessions.

A crackdown on internet companies Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other e-commerce firms has already netted the budget more than $1 billion, as the digital titans get their books in order under new Australian multinational anti-avoidance laws.

The Tax Office estimated the tax gap - the difference between the tax that should have been collected but wasn't - fell to 4.4 per cent or $1.8 billion, due to "differences in the interpretation of complex areas of tax laws".

"We are all over these companies," Australian Tax Office second commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn said in a briefing on Thursday, without naming those who had been targetted.

"The number of very large companies that are in the highest risk box is less than 10. They are a small rump that get a lot of love and attention."

On average, companies included in the report paid tax at the rate of 24.5 per cent, if they had all paid the 30 per cent corporate tax rate, the additional $10 billion would have paid for 10,583,541 emergency patients and 829,224 secondary school students, according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions.