Well it appears we are devided when it comes to a flood levy.

So, is this an opportune time to test the water with a 'transaction tax'?

Let's face it, it won't cause any real damage should it not work and, more importantly, if succesful, it may well pave the way for one simple, much debated about 'transaction tax'.

I propose we set the rate at .1%

.025 for the consumer and .075 for the financial insitutions. After all, they profit from our spending.

When you consider just how many times money chnges hands, this should amount to a heafty sum.

Now what could be fairer, as whether you earn one million per year or you are unemployed or retired, everyone pays thier share and the banks share some of those billions they pocket each year from us, the consumers.

Of cause the percentages may be wrong, but we should have enonomists who cane come up with the majic number!

Mate, it's not necessary to help this lot find new ways to increase the tax rip off.

What we need to do is find some way to stop them wasting all of it.

Of course I had the strange idea that the GST was a transaction tax.

I have a problem with taxing money over and over again. I would prefer a higher tax rate for PAYE, higher rates for the very wealthy, corporate taxes and get rid of all other taxes; coupled with reduction in government waste and obsolete programs. We have a medicare levy and I would be happy with an Emergency Service Levy for disasters but get rid of the hidden taxes for this in insurance policies and the like.

AH Rechtub, it is called GST we have it.
But flood levee, gee if you only said lets have those numbers forever to set up a bank for such?
Next week it begins Tony Abbott the little man on a mission will get right in to the flood levee/tax.
Not to improve Australia, not to save money, that still must be spent,and we must pay, but to create a disturbance to win voters and throw mud.
It will work,oh yes mud sticks, but we all are far worse for it, our politics is bound for more from both sides more confrontation.
Less honesty, only the greens win out of that.

HB>>Of course I had the strange idea that the GST was a transaction tax.

GSt is not a transaction tax, it is one off end user tax. The only person who actually pays 'out of pocket' GST is the 'end user'. All others, manufaturers, retilers, services companies etc, etc, claim thier GST back.

A Transaction tax is on every financial transaction made and nobody can escape it, even if cash is used, because at some point that cash will be banked and taxed.

So this is why I feel we have an opportunity to 'test the water', without breaking our financial backs.

As for allowing our failed government an opportunity to collect and waste yet another tax, I HEAR YOU!

But, bear in mind, if the average wage earner spends $1200 per week,(apparently) then all they would pay would be an additional 30 cents tax. Give or take.

However, thier $1200 passes through so many hands(accounts) that when taxed at every transaction, adds up to a heafty sum.

It has been long debated that a transaction tax of around 2% has the potential to eliminate the need for ALL OTHER TAXES.

Now just imagine if this were so, the tax on $1800 per week (gross) could be as little as $36, a saving of around $500 per week to the PAYG earner.

So instead of bringing home $1200, they would bring home $1700.

Now woudn't that stimulate the ecconomy!

So, this is why I feel we should consider this as an opportunity to test that water once and for all.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and little to loose.

The problem is not the concept, rehctub, but in the huge vested interest in the status quo.

(I am assuming here that you are talking about an "automated payment tax" or "financial transaction tax")

The existing system is heavily people-oriented. Compliance with the requirements of personal income tax, corporation tax, GST, stamp duty and all the rest requires many thousands of accountants, auditors and lawyers, as well as a veritable army of public servants.

Imagine trying to persuade that lot that their "skills" are no longer required, and that the whole tax burden can be handled by computers.

So the very reason why such a system is so desirable, even necessary, becomes its biggest drawback: how would you redeploy these folk into productive work?

A financial transaction tax is so mind-bogglingly simple, both to understand as a concept and to bring into being, that it will never stand a chance of being introduced. Until, that is, we have a government that is unelected, and rules by diktat.

In the meantime, the flag for such a tax is carried by such worthy folk as Selwyn Johnson...

http://www.johnston-independent.com/financial_transaction_tax.html

Unfortunately, it is just one item on his list of bright ideas. A list that includes the Government running a Bank, the imminent arrival of an ice-age, and a stance against free trade. While it is quite on the cards that there are individual flashes of brilliant insight - as in the financial transaction tax - the message can easily become lost in the overall noise.

Which is sad, because the idea of getting rid of the masses of folk who increase the need for taxation by being parasites of the process of taxation itself, is a highly attractive one.