renth

I think you're right, lower taxes for all and balanced budgets are the way to go IMO.

Zen10

Reply to commonwealth -

Rephrase my earlier post - I don't believe tax cuts are good for economies who don't manufacture their own consumables.

commonwealth

lets help the poorer countries who manufacture the goods by buying their goods. after all, they buy our minerals and energy. it's a money merry go round which is the idea behind free trade. unfortunately the free trade was derailed by the ****wits of wall street and canary wharf.

JoeBloggs80

Not doubting you but do you have any examples of companies that invested millions to mine in australia and failed?

Amazulu

I agree about the tax cuts, and your opinion on SWFs - if we were a low taxed country, but we're not. If a political party was to come along and say that we are going to go to a 20% flat-rate tax for all but that they are going to cut all tax breaks and slash welfare in half, I would vote for them, but they would never get elected. Reason being that too many people have a vested interest in keeping the system as it is, ie taking more out of taxation than they put in.

As we are probably never going to be a low taxed country, we need things like SWFs.

GarryP

So the government shouldn't be building roads, that's stupid. They should be acting as loan sharks to the poor - much more sensible and lucrative.

mulben

One of many failures

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...e-town/3096986

Zen10

45% top rate is a low taxed country. Check out top rate income tax levels in post war US to now what a high tax country is like.

Amazulu

I disagree. When you take GST, customs duties, CGT, state taxes and duties, fuel levy etc, we are a highly taxed nation. Yes, there are some great tax breaks available, but with a flat-rate system you could do away with them. When 40-odd% of people are taking more out than they put in, the only way to balance the budget is excessive wealth redistribution.

Zen10

But remember stuff like GST is to a certain degree a voluntary tax. You can choose to buy much less and pay less tax. I buy so little stuff most of the time my GST contribution must be a joke. What state taxes and duties are you referring to, incidentally?

I appreciate there was no healthcare levy etc back when Eisenhower was taking 92% of the rich's wages, but even with all the things you mention, the average Australian pays nowhere near 92% of their salary to the state. That is what I call a high tax state and why I don't regard Australia to be a high tax state, or even Britain with its 12% NI. (The rich of course only pay 2% or 1% NI).

renth

I just got my Joondalup rates, nearly $2500 - wankers! Governments of all persuasion are certainly all good at one thing, stealing your money under penalty of imprisonment.

JoeBloggs80

Thanks.

I might be reading it wrong, but it seems there the story is more BHP letting down the local community by making promises and then selling up and shipping out. They still sold the land for hundreds of millions and still have loads of extremely profitable operations in the country.

I know investment in mining needs a lot of capital to invest and there are obviously some risks as with everything but I think to call it 'a gamble' with the amount of money being made there is stretching it.

renth

I dunno, it takes ages to bring a mine from exploration into production. Commodity prices can move sufficiently in that time to make it a huge gamble.

The way to hedge is in the futures market but not all miners do this and the ones who do will have much lower profits.

GarryP

Could I ask what you think a reasonable total tax bill should be :

1. For someone in poverty
2. For someone not well off
3. Someone on average income
4. Someone doing well
5. Someone 'rich'

Just for interest

Zen10

Moi?