The complexity of the Australian tax system hides many loopholes, one of the most unfair is the fact that some of Australia’s wealthiest citizens pay negative tax. The tax office actually pays money to people who have paid no tax themselves, and these people are some of the wealthiest in the country. It’s time this perverse tax loophole was closed.…
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Words that matter. What’s a franking credit? What’s dividend imputation? And what’s ‘retiree tax’? – from The Conversation by Peter Martin
Peter Martin is a visiting fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You’re forgiven for being confused. Newspapers need to economise on words. Television and radio reporters need to economise on seconds. So they use shorthand: words like “dividend imputation”, “franking credits”, and yes, “retiree tax”. Which is fine…
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Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman berates billionaires at World Economic Forum over tax avoidance
Follow this link to the YouTube recording of the recent panel discussion on this subject. ‘I hear people talking the language of participation, justice, equality and transparency but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share’ Bregman tells the panel. ‘It feels like I’m at a firefighters…
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The banking royal commission – some comments by Commissioner Kenneth Hayne – 4 February 2019
The responses and recommendations made in [the final] report will attract varied responses. Those who oppose change will appeal to real or supposed difficulty in altering present arrangements. Reference will be made to change bringing ‘unintended consequences’. That argument is easily made because it has no content; the ‘consequences’ feared are not identified. But choices must now be made. The…
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time to act on the ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart: Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of…
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The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report – 27 January 2019
Executive Summary…………………………………………… Obesity is still increasing in prevalence in almost all countries and is an important risk factor for poor health and mortality. The current approach to obesity prevention is failing despite many piecemeal efforts, recommendations, and calls to action. This Commission following on from two Lancet Series on obesity looks at obesity in a much wider context of common…
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Watch out for scams
The Australian Competition and Consumer Division (ACCC) has an excellent web site at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/. You can subscribe for free to get email alerts on the latest scams. It is very important that friendly trusting decent human computer users sign on to get these alerts. There are some very clever nasty people out there and it is easy to be misled. Below…
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Fact-checking Trump’s lies is easy, he tells the same ones all the time.
Daniel Dale is the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star. The newspaper’s live tally of Trump’s false claims has a dedicated website. It is worth a visit! The following article is by DanielDale and was published on 26 November 2018. I’ve made it my mission to fact-check every word Donald Trump utters as president. That means trying to watch every…
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Australian Egg Industry Community Research
CSIRO’s Australian Egg Industry Community Research – 2018 Report was released on 30 October 2018 and can be downloaded here. Australian Eggs commissioned the research to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the egg industry and the community. The report describes the key findings from a national community survey conducted by the CSIRO in August and September 2018.…
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Five myths about capitalism by Steven Pearlstein*
It turns out that these ‘truisms’ of the market aren’t actually true at all. Thirty years ago, in the face of a serious economic challenge from Japan and Europe, the United States embraced a form of free-market capitalism that was less regulated, less equal, and more prone to booms and busts. Bolstering that embrace was a set of useful myths…