http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2010/01/23/risky-approach-to-henry-tax-report/ Journalism and other writing Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:41:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2010/01/23/risky-approach-to-henry-tax-report/comment-page-1/#comment-372 Wayne Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:06:24 +0000 http://www.crispinhull.com.au/?p=9515#comment-372 Hi Crispin, you appear to have forgotten another (possibly more taboo) component of wealth and potential tax base than income and expenditure (GST). That is Assets (whether cash or property). At the moment this is in the hands of State government - but perhaps ALL revenue collection (Federal, State and Local) should be in the hands of one body rather than duplicating infrastructure at the federal, state and local government levels. My pet peeve is that foreign owners of our country's assets often only pay local taxes and do not pay their fair share toward establishment and maintenance of state or federal infrastructure that enhances and preserves the value of those assets (eg federal road contributions, defence). I would have liked to have seen more of a breakdown of spending than just a statement that most people are misguided as to where our taxes go. As well as this perhaps a cursory analysis of what proportion of that spending would be more relevant to either a high, middle or low income earner. I also think that we do not need to prostitute our country to encourage foreign investment for investment sake - a practice that could actually cost us more than it gains in the longer term (eg are we artificially increasing our property prices just so we can borrow foreign money to fund our mortgages ?). Hi Crispin, you appear to have forgotten another (possibly more taboo) component of wealth and potential tax base than income and expenditure (GST). That is Assets (whether cash or property). At the moment this is in the hands of State government – but perhaps ALL revenue collection (Federal, State and Local) should be in the hands of one body rather than duplicating infrastructure at the federal, state and local government levels. My pet peeve is that foreign owners of our country’s assets often only pay local taxes and do not pay their fair share toward establishment and maintenance of state or federal infrastructure that enhances and preserves the value of those assets (eg federal road contributions, defence). I would have liked to have seen more of a breakdown of spending than just a statement that most people are misguided as to where our taxes go. As well as this perhaps a cursory analysis of what proportion of that spending would be more relevant to either a high, middle or low income earner. I also think that we do not need to prostitute our country to encourage foreign investment for investment sake – a practice that could actually cost us more than it gains in the longer term (eg are we artificially increasing our property prices just so we can borrow foreign money to fund our mortgages ?).

]]> http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2010/01/23/risky-approach-to-henry-tax-report/comment-page-1/#comment-370 Geoff Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:12:31 +0000 http://www.crispinhull.com.au/?p=9515#comment-370 Hi Crispin, I think there is a serious flaw in your argument whre you state in this article that "Income is ditributed in a bell curve" - it is a very skewed bell curve - "Stark inequalities of wealth in Australia are documented by the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research in the first significant study of individual wealth holdings since World War 1. Among the Melbourne Institute’s findings is that the ‘bottom half’ of Australia’s population owns less than 10 per cent of total household net worth, while the wealthiest 10 per cent owns 45 per cent.", in other words the top earners certainly can afford to pay more tax (or less aviodance). Hi Crispin, I think there is a serious flaw in your argument whre you state in this article that “Income is ditributed in a bell curve” – it is a very skewed bell curve – “Stark inequalities of wealth in Australia are documented by the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research in the first significant study of individual wealth holdings since World War 1.
Among the Melbourne Institute’s findings is that the ‘bottom half’ of Australia’s population owns less than 10 per cent of total household net worth, while the wealthiest 10 per cent owns 45 per cent.”, in other words the top earners certainly can afford to pay more tax (or less aviodance).

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