SPIN: The Family Home is exempt from land tax. (And all the people shall say: Amen.)

FACT: If home buyers don’t have to pay land tax, they can afford higher mortgage repayments, hence higher prices. While the price of a house is limited by the cost of construction and by competition …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …