‘Taxes’ on Land are Rents: Therefore they Can’t be Passed On Rates and land ‘tax’ are notionally already in the gross rent paid by a tenant, and cannot be ‘passed on’. If, as claimed by vested interests, the land value…
Having recently read biographies of Paul Keating, Wayne Swan, and Craig Emerson, I’m astounded at their incredible levels of political commitment and investment in the Labor Party, and to Australia, during the Hawke-Keating period of government from 11 March 1983…
The Need for Economic Democracy by Mark Haywood “Our planet is small at last, and we will not forever be able to seek prosperity in the impoverishment of others and the destruction of nature. Ecology compels us, finally,…
In an interesting article in the Fairfax media today, purporting to provide the truth about declining wages in Australia, Jessica Irvine and Adam Gartrell fail to mention that David Ricardo, Adam Smith, JS Mill and Henry George had all said that…
James Webster Parkdale, VIC 3195 March 7th 2018, Dear DELWP, I object to key changes in the Local Government Act Review that undermine the revenue sovereignty of local Councils. I consider revenue sovereignty crucial to council’s political sovereignty. I…
Local Government Rating Review submission The two most thoroughgoing inquiries into Australian municipal rating have proven to be:- 1) the 1965-1967 NSW Royal Commission on Local Government Finance and Land Valuation, under Justice Rae Else-Mitchell, and 2) the 1989 Brisbane…
3 January 2018 International Co-operation and Tax Administration Division OECD/CTPA Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Circumvention of Common Reporting Standards (CRS) May I respectfully suggest that the OECD has set itself an impossible task in endeavouring to…
Taxes on wages in Australia were fairly minimal until WWII, since which time they’ve been ratcheted up significantly. Federal taxes before the war consisted mainly of customs and excise charges and the federal land tax, introduced in 1910. The States…
In his paper American Government Finance in the Long Run: 1790 to 1990 (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol 14, Number 1) John Joseph Wallis demonstrates that US government finance experienced three separate phases:- Asset Finance Phase 1790 to 1842, where state-driven infrastructure and…
All the great social philosophers have held that land must be rented, not sold, if communities aren’t to implode. One of them put it into a formula, saying that if we were to capture the social surplus, then labour and…