Groupthink

Posts Tagged Tax

Give them hell

Jul 26

Posted by Spock... in Federal election 2010, Politics | 5 Comments

If I was Julia Gillard, I would call this an act of war.

MINERS have won the backing of other major industry groups in launching a fresh round of advertisements against Labor’s mining tax.

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, representing smaller miners and explorers, said in Perth today it would begin television, radio and newspaper ads within days calling on the government to rescind the tax.

All this after Julia Gillard bent over backwards to accommodate the wishes of the big miners. The miners ran a scare campaign against it, the ALP gave in to some of the demands of the mining industry and reduced the tax rate.

An industry got to meet with the Prime Minister of the country and negotiate its own tax rates, earn concessions then they have the gall to run another advertising campaign during the federal election campaign against the government that negotiated with them!

If I were the ALP, I would go back to the original tax proposal and go to town on AMEC. If they want war, give them war: it is not like this is a hard policy to sell. Taxing the most profitable industry in Australia (that makes its profits from resources that are owned by the Australian people), then spending that money to cut the company tax rate for all business around Australia and for superannuation incentives for an ageing Australia.

Bring on the scare campaign from the Miners. This is a fight that the ALP can win. If the ALP can’t stand up on this and defend what is a good policy against a clearly self interested party, they really are totally impotent and this country has been lost forever.

Business and the mining industry have clearly shown that they are not friends of the ALP and are more than happy to beat them over the head with whatever they can, no matter what decision they make.

Even one retail association is attacking a tax that is being used to fund a tax-cut for them. I bet if their tax cut was being funded by taxes on middle-class or poor people they wouldn’t be so vocal.

AMEC chief executive Simon Bennison said two other business groups – the Retail Federation and the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry — were poised to also run ads against the tax.

But this, this quote is a keeper. I want to take this quote and make some more little baby quotes with it.

“We are taking this as a very apolitical approach,” he [Simon Bennison] said.

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Bad reporting or deliberate class provocation?

Jul 22

Posted by David in Federal election 2010, Media, Politics | 5 Comments

Yesterday Tony Abbott declared the Coalition would expand the existing Education Tax Rebate to include school fees for all eligible students.

According to the Liberal Party’s press release:

“For primary students, this would mean a rebate to up to $500 per year per child in primary school. Eligible families will be able to claim a 50 per cent rebate for up to $1,000 of eligible education-related expenses for each child in primary school.

“For secondary school students, we will increase the rebate to up to $1,000 per year per child. Eligible families will be able to claim a 50 per cent rebate for up to $2,000 of education-related expenses for each child in secondary school.”

The payment is available for students at state, independent and private schools. But the government school element of this seems to have been lost on the Fairfax press, which ran with this intro:

Parents will be entitled to claim generous fee subsidies for sending their children to private and independent schools as part of the Coalition’s expanded education rebate policy.

Nowhere in the story that follows does it mention that state school students are eligible for the tax rebate, or that it is only available to parents on Family Tax Benefit A – meaning it’s already Centrelink means tested. In fact at the end of the story there is a poll which asks:

Do you think students should be able to claim a rebate on private school fees?

Which is shorthand for, should rich parents be allowed to claim tax benefits for sending their kid to Scotch College?

The Australian got into the act as well, with:

PARENTS will be able to claim for private school fees, violin lessons and dance and drama classes under the Coalition’s education tax rebate.

Do you like the addition of violin in there?

It’s true government schools don’t have fees, but they do have voluntary levies (in Victoria at least) which parents are strongly “encouraged” to pay. There have been cases of schools threatening to withhold extra-curricular services from children, such as excursions and sports carnivals subsidised by the levy, if parents don’t pay up. These levies are generally under $100 for primary school and under $200 for secondary schools, and are on top of the cost of books, uniforms, camps, shoes etc. The notion of free government schooling is virtually a myth.

Now I am the last person to defend private schools (or Liberal Party policy for that matter). However, stories on election announcements should be accurate, informative and totally objective without a sensationalist angle. If ever a journalist’s primary role of gathering information, assessing it and presenting it in an easy to digest and accurate manner was important it’s during an election campaign. Why skew a story for a decent headline when offering people tax breaks for school fees is interesting enough?

Of course, it is debatable whether or not there should be tax rebates for private school fees, but there’s a big difference between including private schools in such a scheme and it being exclusive public schools when it comes to people’s opinions on the matter.

For the record I’m sick of middle class welfare for cost of living expenses such as school fees when family carers of disabled children are doing it touch because they are unable to work and often receive less than the aged pension.

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Choose your own adventure: tax edition

Jul 3

Posted by Spock... in Politics, Society | No Comments

Taking into account the Gillard government’s current policy of negotiating your own tax burden, I would like to take this time to outline my current position. I will be taking this directly to the PM just as soon as her office starts returning my calls.

I would like to propose that I pay no tax.

None.

I feel I contribute much to society already through the operation of the free market and that by taxing me the government is interfering in my free market operation.

Taxes are restricting my spending on CDs, alcohol and clothing. Hurting many great Australian businesses. If I continue being taxed I may have to scale back my investment, a move that will lead to much suffering for the hardworking people of Cooper’s Brewery. I think I personally have been responsible for at least 2 jobs there.

Now, I understand that if I don’t pay taxes it will lead to a shortfall in the federal budget. But don’t worry, I am way ahead of you. I have bought with me a number of proposals that I think you will find will suitably fill the hold left in the budget by me not paying taxes.

I have long been of the opinion that Nickelback CDs are grossly under taxed in this country. There would be quite a revenue boost if the government decided to hike the taxes on shitty Microsoft and Adobe software. A levy on Southern Cross decals and tats?

Or, how about a rise in the tax rate on the big miners? I hear they are making quite a lot of money.

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Oh, now you have something to say!?

Jul 2

Posted by Spock... in Corporations, Politics | 4 Comments

As I’m sure you have all heard, today Julia Gillard showed that she has a spine made out of gelatin:

The government has excluded all commodities from the tax apart from iron ore and coal, easing industry fears about the potential impact on base metals projects.

Under the revised deal announced this morning, onshore oil and gas projects including the booming coal seam gas sector in Queensland will be covered by the existing Petroleum Resource Rent tax, levied at 40 per cent.

The rate at which the tax applies has risen from the long-term bond rate – currently just over 5 per cent – to the bond rate plus 7 per cent. That makes the threshold about 12 per cent.

What has been cut to pay for the revenue shortfall this will create?

The $1.5 billion reduction in revenue under the new plan to $10.5 billion will mean the government must reform some of the initiatives that were contingent upon the tax, including the slashing of the company tax rate to 28 per cent.

The government has now said the company tax rate will be cut to 29 per cent from 2013-14, saving $600 milion, but will not be reduced further.

And industry is outraged:

Australian Industry Group CEO Heather Ridout, who was on the Henry tax review panel, says she is deeply disappointed that the proposed business tax cut went from a recommendation to lower the company tax rate to 25 per cent, then to 28 per cent in the original mining tax proposal, and now is at just 29 per cent.

And smaller mining companies suddenly have something to say:

Despite the majors claiming a win with the new resources tax, the mid-tier miners and juniors have said the deal was designed by the big players, with the smaller miners “stuck on the sidelines”.

Emerging Pilbara miner BC Iron’s managing director Mike Young said the government had been “done over” by the major miners.

“The big foreign-owned miners, the three big bad guys that Tony Abbott sided with, have done the government over,” he said.

“Real Australian companies, like BC Iron and Atlas Iron, sit on the sidelines and don’t get consulted.

In fact, they are all coming out of the woodwork:

Meanwhile, West Australian company Atlas Iron says small miners have been sidelined in the negotiations on the tax so far.

“I would be concerned if there was an announcement that took place before there was proper consultation and a consensus because after all, that’s where we thought we were heading with Julia Gillard,” managing director David Flanagan told ABC’s Lateline Business.

“But maybe not and maybe we’ve got a lot more reason to be concerned about the future of Australia.”

He says big miners cannot speak on behalf of smaller companies.

As far as I’m concerned they should all STFU about it right now. Where the fuck were they two weeks ago when the government was being crucified over the issue (and a Prime Minister being disposed)?

Completely silent, thats what. Take this from the Australian Industry Group’s media release page:

Screen shot 2010-07-02 at 9.13.25 PMAnd it goes right back until the 8th of June and no mention of the RSPT. No mention in favour of the company tax cut, just complete silence until today. Just one media release, bitching about the reduction in the cut of company tax.
Get fucked

They have no right to whinge now, so they should all just shut the fuck up. This is what you get when you don’t speak out in favour of a policy that was getting steamrolled. It gets steamrolled.

ELSEWHERE: Jeremy over at Anonymous Lefty tackles the issue beautifully in his post. I wish I had a Crikey subscription so I could read Bernard Keane’s contribution, but I’m sure you subscribers will tell me how awesome it was. And Dave from Albury reminds the ALP who their friends are.

UPDATE: From today’s news, more unhappy industry groups who were silent while the policy was being attacked. For all of you I feel precisely zero sympathy, you made you’re own bed on this one.

Retailers were also unhappy. ”Due to tax concessions to the mining sector, the Gillard government has penalised all companies and small businesses that were due to benefit from the promised company tax cut,” said the Australian Retailers Association director, Russell Zimmerman.

Oh, and some super funds decide to finally speak up in favour in the policy.

Australia’s big super funds expressed relief that mandatory superannuation increases would go ahead despite the concessions to the miners.

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