Now, that's not saying it will be implemented successfully.

Why would they go elsewhere?

Look BHP develops a mine yonks ago where they figure it's profitable to dig stuff out of the ground for .. I dunno .. say a buck a ton. Some time down the track China comes along and the price is now $5 a ton. If we take $2 (40%) off them as super tax they still get to pocket $3 a ton... three times more than where they started off at when they figured they'd make a reasonable profit. Why would they give that up?

Dodgy, totally exaggerated figures plucked out of thin air as an example only.. so please don't expect me to support any of those numbers! But do you see what I'm getting at? Or have I lost it completely?

(don't answer that last one.. yes I am wearing my hat)

Fortunate, or misfortunate, I have shares in large mining Company's Bully for me, I worked hard to get them and have hung onto them for some time.
General public shouldn’t be fooled into believing that the share price has fallen because of the "proposed" tax. That’s a comment direct from major fund managers.
The impact of the Euro crash on the market is just like the USA crash impact, that’s driving the downturn. The sad thing is some of the Euro has no way of funding bail outs, and the market can see that.
Close proximity to markets keeps these commodities in preference to simular bases. Cheap to ship ex Aus than for instance Brazil
Everyone pays a fair and reasonable tax. The PAYE is up there in the high 30% mark, along with all other items day to day on GST.
Lots off squealing going on from Miners, (who I own shares in) who’s purchase power gets massive discounts in the market place that normal PAYE don’t have the luxury of.
Along with this healthy TAX concessions already, average Joe and Jane DONT get. That’s the carrot to invest.
Sadly now some of these are killing the pig and that’s the squealing we are hearing.
40% on “profit” above an X line in the sand is the “start “point, they haven’t started to negotiate yet in earnest. And negotiate they will, as the Miners have great skills doing this day to day in the market place.
Super profit tax has been mooted for a number of years, it’s now just cracking the surface.
I want to see just what the eventual line in the sand is before I make a judgement call on what’s good and what isn’t.
Mining groups squealing is lead up part of the “negotiation” process that average Joe/Jane doesn’t get to see day to day.
Rant over

maxm said...


Why would they give that up?

I don't know how you got the idea that I meant they would close existing mines, that hasn't been a view expressed by anyone media or otherwise as far as I can tell.

What I mean is that it may become more profitable for them to take the money they have made mining in australia, and invest in mines elsewhere. No doubt they will still make a profit on existing mines, however it may become more profitable in future for them to invest overseas.

The big miners will always make money, its just a question of who's rocks they dig out of the ground, and consequently who they pay the tax too.

doggie said...

Boobs

I concur!

Nothing against Australia benefiting more from its mineral wealth and the arguments that Australia did poorly in last boom are very strong, but I can't see the logic of taxing profits to gain a better share for the people.

Part of the proposal is also to give an equal tax deduction for losses on capital expenditure.

So scenario :
two mines next door to each other both operate doing excatly the same thing. One efficiently one inefficiently. One makes a profit and is penalised, one makes a loss and is rewarded.



Also, with say WA iron ore where does the tax kick in ?

BHP and Rio for example mine the ore, then railroad it, then process it, then ship it. They build and own the whole system. They make varying profit on each activity. If they are going to be taxed for running an efficeint rail system, then why isn't every rail operator in Australia taxed the same ?.

One reason for their large profits is running their rail network at close to 100% efficiently. Can you say that for state passenger rail in NSW ? Why penalise them for doing well ? running a rail system has nothing to do with using Australian resources.

Same logic applies to gold processing and every other mining company and process. Nickel operations in the WA goldfields for example has many small miners all using a joint processing facility. They may mine well, but be slugged with high processing charges (or visa versa), where and what does the tax apply on ?


And - seems everyone has forgotten Rio's troubles of only a few years ago. Rio could not find anyone to finance it's $10 billion debt. They had good cash reserves, good operating profit, could easily pay the interest and repayments, but could find nobody to fund the debt.

Chinese state run corporations were going to step in and finance them in return for 15% ownership (and 100% for some of their operations). If Australia really wants to benefit from the mining boom instead of taxing their profits why didn't Australian government step in, fund the loans, take the ownership, earn the interest on the loan, the tax from their profits, the dividends on their shares and the capital growth of the shares from the rock bottom price they would have bought them at.

All smacks to me like a failure to understand the business models and tax systems.

But then again if you can't see that artifically creating markets and destroying markets over night (home insulation, schools building projects etc.) are unsustainable in a free market capatalist system and are going to cause significant issues then the complexity of other things are probably beyond you as well.

And what's with charging royaltese and the returning them ? just a way of keeping civil servants in work ? Probably only need the tax to pay for the red tape and administration.

I understand that constitutionally the ore and minerals belong to the states and given it is very difficult to determine what 'mining' is the whole tax in its proposed system can't work.

Far better would be for the Australian government to offer to finance development if companies so wish at a lower rate of interest than the Chinese offer. Australia takes a share of the operating company, takes company tax, dividened return, interest repayment. The mining company can buy their shares back by paying off the loan 100% and then buying the shares at market value.

This is what the Australian government is allowing the Chinese to do.

It stinks. Don't blame the miners.

(by the way I undertsand this is what BHP told them in teh discussiions they went to a few days ago - but I don't know I have no affiliation with BHP, just read the interviews)

someone on ABC the other night was saying that "mining created wealth".

I'm not sure. Farming potentially creates wealth. Inventing clever ways to do things with less or better ways to help people use their time creates wealth, but isn't mining just getting stuff (with a fair bit of effort) that's been there all along and selling it..

Banks should be subject to the same sort of tax regime. They make profit out of the hardwork an sweat of Australians.

Turning stuff into other stuff thats worth something makes wealth. Banks don't make anything except money.

You could argue quite strongly farming in its current form is just as unsustainable as mining, and is degenerating the Australian land as much as mining is so should therefore suffer the same tax.

Particularly farming in southeast of Australia. Maybe if it was to be proposed to tax farming the same for the same reasons NSW would object as much as WA objects to the mining tax, NT would also object as Kunnunarra is a bit different to the Murray Darling area in farming effects.

Personnel income tax works on a sliding scale, the more you earn the higher you pay, so in principal I see the argument for company tax to be the same. Given company tax is 28% (post budget) and top rate income tax is (45% ??) the 40% value of the supertax doesn't seem way off the mark, at face value.

But interms of a buisness it discourages buisness to work efficiently. You have the choice to invest to improve profit but then you pay more in tax than you probably spent in investing so you don't bother. Basically income tax does not require a capital outlay to increase income in the same way buisness profit does.

If you added up all the failed resource projects of late and gave them 40% it would be pretty scary. top of my head :
BHP Ravensthorpe - $1 billion - so government gives BHP $400 million
BHP Hot Brickette Headland - $ 1 billion - so BHP is up to $800 million in government handouts for failing in business
Anaconda Nickel Murrin Murrin $ nearly 1 billion - would have given Forrest a help with starting FMG I suppose
Sons of Gwalia Tantalum (can remember the name off GNH south of Hedland) $ ?
Didn't Minara have a laterite nickle that failed ??
maybe someone can google the rest - but it is a pretty big $ list.

I don't recon the headlines in the paper would look good if the government gave BHP $400 million - I am sure they wouldn't invest it in Ravensthorpe town to support the people that suffered as a result of the failure. Would probably go straight to the Chinese in interest.

What creates wealth is the countries government allowing the free market to flourish. That may not be a nice answer, but is historically true. I am not saying it is necessarily what you want as it certainly opens the divide between rich and poor, but it also lifts the average.

Is the idea is for Australia to share in the long term wealth of the resource industry or for the current government to reduce it's massive deficit before the next election ?

Far better solution than a tax is for Aussie government to issue bonds or currency for the Chinese to buy and spend the money on loans to develop resource project where the porject is 100% autralian owned and financed and the government has a share of both the risk and the reward for no net outlay.

But this long term thinking, not based on 4 year election cycles.

Mobydisc said...

Banks should be subject to the same sort of tax regime. They make profit out of the hardwork an sweat of Australians.

Turning stuff into other stuff thats worth something makes wealth. Banks don't make anything except money.

sometimes banks put money in the right places...

Sorry, more than $1 billion is beyond my comprehension.

And Sons of Gwalia was Wodgina, I remembered now. Although I am sure the downfall of SOG and the upgrades at Wodgina were not quite that simple

And Minara was Anaconda, geeze I need to think more

And technically I think it is 40% tax break, so $3 billion at 40% break on company tax of 28% would be $ 336 million less to pay in taxm as opposed to a cash handout

- but I am sure if the emphasis on reporting what a failed job cost you went from defending your decisions as a board against shareholder anger to maximising tax rebates most of the jobs would suddenly find some extra expenses that weren't corporate overheads, but job related direct expenses.

I'm really pissed because I wrote for 20 minutes and then seabreeze fell over on the quotes. unreadable. (i added

to no avail)

But basically I said that

A) That graph is taken from Westpac. Note the source is "Treasury" not that report. Interesting.

B) The government will cover 40% of initial investment losses, even if they never make a profit. This means 40% less risk, more mines.

C) This means the government is essentially a 40% owner. All profits, all losses. They take a 40% dividend on all profits.

D) This means less for reinvestment.

E) Look at Norway's position after it made its oilfields state owned. Look at Mexico. Sometimes Socialism works, sometimes Capitalism fails. Neither is perfect.

F) I don't fully believe the government is capable. There are still so many questions. Like what to do with current mines? They've missed the 40% discount on initial investment, but have to pay the 40% on profits. Is that in the calcs? Don't think so.

G) Then I thought deeper...

Boobs Boobs Boobs

One day I'm going to live on a self-sufficient piece of land next to a lake or piece of coastline where it is windy, leave the human drama field far behind.

I've already got a lake on the shortlist:

Bump & Jump manna:



Smoke on the water:



I'll need one of those wetsuits with a heater in them though : )

(yes, photography nerds. horizons and get my sensor cleaned)

evlPanda said...



B) The government will cover 40% of initial investment losses, even if they never make a profit. This means 40% less risk, more mines.

C) This means the government is essentially a 40% owner. All profits, all losses. They take a 40% dividend on all profits.

My understanding of the details isn't great (as they haven't actually been decided) - but

Isn't it a tax break on 40% of investment cost ?

So $100 investment entitles you to not pay (or rebate) 28% of $60 = $16.80.

If you make $100 profit, $6 is taxed at 28% and $94 at 40%

So you pay $39.28 less the $16.80 = $ 22.48

Current system is 28% on 100% profit, so on $100 you pay $ 28

So if you double your money in an investment government looses under new system. If you triple your money I get $56 old sytem, $ 61.76 new system, so $5.67 more to government.

I guess if you don't have the investment write down (as current projects won't) you loose quite badly ?

Or maybe $100 investment and $100 profit means you pay tax on $100 - 40% of investment = $ 60 equivalent profit ??? = $ 23.28 ?

And the proposed system doesn't mean the goverment takes any interest in the entity, it is just a tax. The tax is variable to the performance, so the government has an interest in that way, but doesn't own anything as such - they can't loose money, there is no risk for them, they just get less tax and have to tax something else

landyacht said...

but the banks ar'nt all in WA,like all the mining companies.
Is it my imagination or are all the big queensland coalminers keeping very quiet?

Some of the biggest coal mines in Qld are owned by ...... Guess who....WESFARMERS.