Since the Howard government gained control of the Senate, we have been hearing numerous proposals for reducing the top marginal rate of income tax. The excuse is that high marginal rates reduce the incentive for wealth creation and encourage tax minimization. Let’s put this excuse to the test.

A holding tax is a tax of so many percent of the value of an asset per year, payable by the owner of the asset. If income tax were replaced by holding taxes, the top marginal rate of income tax would be zero. Beat that! And if those holding taxes were confined to assets that taxpayers can neither create nor destroy nor move out of the taxing jurisdiction — assets such as land and monopolies — the taxes would cause zero reduction in the stock of assets and zero discouragement to the production of new assets. That takes care of wealth creation.

In every marginal electorate, politicians promise to take revenue raised by nationwide or statewide taxes and spend it on projects that confer purely local economic benefits. This practice is corrupt and unnecessary — corrupt because a minority of taxpayers are bribed at the expense of the majority, and unnecessary because, if a project is economically justified, it can be funded out of the benefit that it confers — and, by implication, from within the area that gets the benefit.

If a project confers a benefit on a limited area, you can’t share in the benefit unless you live or do business in the area; and for that purpose you need access to real estate in the area. Therefore the market value of the benefit is manifested as uplifts in land values in the affected area. If the project satisfies a cost-benefit test, the total uplift will exceed the cost, so the project can be funded by clawing back only a fraction of the uplift through the tax system, leaving the rest of the uplift as an unearned windfall for owners of property in the affected area — and without burdening the taxpayers outside that area.

The flat tax fanatics are back. They say that if there were only one rate of income tax, the system would be simpler, and the rich couldn’t reduce their tax by converting one kind of income into another kind taxed at a lower rate. In the case of a pure flat tax — that is, a tax with one rate and no tax-free threshold — the tax rate could be lower, and the rich couldn’t claim multiple thresholds by splitting income between persons or between financial years.

But of course such reforms would make the tax system less progressive — a “progressive” tax being a tax that takes a higher fraction of income as income increases.

IR Reform: Let Banks Collect P.A.Y.E. Tax

The Howard government’s industrial relations agenda attacks the wages and conditions of workers as if this were the only way to reduce the cost of hiring. What about the administrative costs imposed by government? For example:

* If you become an employer, you must also become a tax collector and tax agent, deducting and remitting pay-as-you-earn income tax from employees, and issuing group certificates.

* If you become an employer, you must also become a superannuation agent, paying 9 percent of your employees’ wages into personal superannuation funds. You may even have to give a choice of funds — just like the independent brokers, except that you don’t get any commission!

The Mitcham-Frankston tollway, also known as EastLink, will reduce commuting times in suburbs serviced by the tollway and in suburbs serviced by alternative routes, such as the untolled Springvale and Stud roads, whose congestion levels will be reduced by EastLink. The market value of this benefit (net of tolls) will be manifested as uplifts in land values in the lucky suburbs (because you have to live or work in those suburbs to get the benefit). So owners of property in those suburbs will benefit from EastLink even if they don’t use it and don’t pay the toll on it. But people who live in rental accommodation and who commute via EastLink will pay for it twice — they’ll pay the toll and their rents will go up. How equitable is that?