Shadow Minister,

You can pretend all you want that I haven't demonstrated any difference. But I did. And the difference is simple. It is OWNERSHIP. Who owns the asset/or income stream.

Royalty " in law, the payment made to the OWNERS of certain types of rights by those who are permitted by the OWNERS to exercise the rights. The rights concerned are literary, musical, and artistic copyright; patent rights in inventions and designs; and rights in mineral deposits, including oil and natural gas. "

Next you'll be telling us that an author/artist taxes their publisher/dealer by expecting royalties.

When it comes to coal and iron ore etc. (royalties) the gov't owns the asset and by payment of royalties, transfers that right to the mining companies.The gov't owns the asset which it receives the royalty on.

Stamp duty is a tax on the exchange of goods in which the gov't is NOT the principal owner. Payroll tax, GST, death duty, sales tax etc are also are taxes on economic activity/assests that the gov't does NOT have ownership of.

The Royalty is an input cost. Like every other business which has to pay for the goods it sells, so do the mining companies. To claim that these are taxes isn't so much a problem in and of itself. It becomes a problem when the mining companies use this definition to claim that they pay exrbitant tax rates. My business would also look like it paid massive taxes if we included the cost of our raw inputs as a Tax.

PaulL,

Perhaps you should share your new found knowledge with those who seem not to understand such as Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard, Ken Henry, etc who have all recently referred to the royalties as taxes.

I strongly suggest you read the definition of a tax again, and point out where the royalties do not apply. So far I have yet to see any.

PS. the law was changed from ownership of mineral rights specifically to enable a tax to be levied.