Interesting article about mining and the taxes that are paid by miners in the SMH today. I'm using an iPad so couldn't be bothered to cut and paste the URL.

In a way it would be more just and would create more wealth to reduce corporate taxes to a very low rate and make up the revenue shortfall from mining and consumption taxes. Apparently the minerals of Australia belongs to all Australians. Once the minerals a dug up and sent off they are gone for ever. Lower company tax would encourage more business activity and increase wealth right around Australia.

Yeah there are worse problems to face than trying to work out how to pay your cgt liability, unless of course you've already blown all your gains away and have no money.

Mobydisc said...

.. minerals of Australia belongs to all Australians...

interesting ...
if so how much $$ average Australian.. (say government) has on each ton of iron ore that is dug up here that is sold at $140 ??
85% of all resources are in overseas hands
the rest in greedy Aussie that have a problem even paying less then fair share of their profits...

log man said...

Moby,....." Lower company tax would encourage more business activity and increase wealth right around Australia". Really? haven't we tried the "trickle down effect". Give companies a bigger tax break.......and that increases the wealth "right around Australia"? I just don't see how one automatically follows the other.

This is exactly the policy Rudd proposed with Brown's support. Unfortunately it was scuttled by Gillard. I thought Brown and Rudd were your heroes.

The policy goes something along the lines that reduced company tax will increase business activity and will encourage business to employ more people. It's not exactly trickle down theory as I think that has more to do with reducing income tax more than company tax.

Any reduction in the cost of doing business will increase business. Despite what most people who have never been in business think, most businesses run on very thin margins. If business got a reprieve from expense of government it would almost certainly increase economic activity and as a result improve the lives of Australians.

"Life is hard for the....richest" you say.

I guess thats why my life is so easy and happy.

Macroscien said...


"Mrs Rinehart, who is worth $17.1 billion,

She might have 17.1 billion, but she ain't worth squat

A persons worth is never fiscal

Mobydisc said...

Strange isn't it that most states are struggling financially while most of them have a lot of mining activity going on.

There's a lot of mining in WA, then Queensland, and less in other states. Below are some figures announced during the week... I was trying to find just the percentage growth figures, but could only find the graphic below.



www.smh.com.au/business/state-close-to-recession-20120307-1ukme.html

theDoctor said...

Macroscien said...


"Mrs Rinehart, who is worth $17.1 billion,

She might have 17.1 billion, but she ain't worth squat

A persons worth is never fiscal

I don't care what she's worth
but she's not squating on my face.

Funny how tory ideaology says the only way for economic prosperity is to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. Business people often get confused betweeen whats good for the economy and whats good for their own back pocket.

Harty said...


Lifes pretty hard for the not so rich as well.



You can't buy that sh!t

Hang on there, notice how sunday is not windy but its windy during the week

log man said...

Mobydisc said...

log man said...

Yeah, fair enough on the reduction of company tax....I guess it's a good thing but I know in my business that a small reduction in tax isn't a huge deal. I'd say the biggest thing is confidence and security, and I'm ****ed if I know how to influence that in a way that would make a difference. Maybe people need distractions from the constant,unending business gurus that crap on about Greece, how bad Australia's economy is and how we should all be **** scared about what's around the corner. Maybe it's a chicken or egg thing, maybe our economy is crappy because we keep looking for signs that it's crappy. Distractions, we need more distractions........HEY.....look over there at that semi naked girl. There, Just fixed the economy!

Top post log man.

I was talking to my bank manager the other day and he said everyone is running scared.

theDoctor said...

Macroscien said...


"Mrs Rinehart, who is worth $17.1 billion,

She might have 17.1 billion, but she ain't worth squat

A persons worth is never fiscal

(Ignoring tax etc. etc.)
That's $1 million a day, five days/week, for ~60 years. And then some.
It's actually unimaginable.

BulldogPup said...

Reckon the horrible old battleaxe Rhinehart has siphoned off all the dough in that trust for the kids (that old Lang set up years earlier) either that or it tried a good old tax dodge and tried to keep it under the carpet , don't get that rich without screwing someone over along the way

Bulldog... Well said, I reckon that you have got it in one with that comment - most of the funding from her forays in Ten and Fairfax would have been funded from the trust that they are fighting over.

I don't know why everybody gives Gina and the likes such a sledging because of the supposed 17 billion she or they might be worth.
It's not like these people have all that money stashed in a cupboard somewhere so they can take it out and play with it when they are feeling depressed.
It's not even real money. It's what their share of the business might be worth if they flogged it off tomorrow to the Chinese. And of course then everyone would be up in arms about selling off the farm to overseas interests, as usual.
In the meantime, their share of the business is used generate jobs to pay highly unqualified truck drivers $150,000 a year and super highly unqualified lollypop traffic directing persons $80,000 a year, and all degrees of unqualifications and salaries in between.

If the business was flogged off tomorrow and the money distributed to the hangers on, all and sundry, within a few years the whole business would be defunct and employing nobody.

Isn't this exactly what has happened in so many African countries like Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where what used to be the most prosperous countries in Africa, now don't even have the ability to fix their roads or worse still, feed their own people.

And no, I don't know Gina or Twiggy or any of the others. But I think if someone spends their whole life building up a worthwhile business and asset which generate very well paid employment for others, while most of the rest of the country is pissing their profits up against a wall somewhere, then they should have the right to hang on to what they have achieved