THE WAY THE 0.1% WANT IT: INCOME TAX THEN DAYLIGHT

INCOME TAX, THEN DAYLIGHT

Dr Gavin Putland, Director of the Land Values Research Group has given Australia’s iniquitous revenue sourcing a graphical perspective.

In theory, income tax sounds very progressive, doesn’t it?  It’s sorely abused however – and not simply by using smart lawyers and accountants.  If you’re a mega-wealthy landowner, you will claw back every cent you’ve ever paid in income tax via the uplift in your land values – i.e. on the back of the public’s rent that you’ve been able to privatise.

Are renters able to offset their taxes in this way?  Can the middle class do this?  Is the rent of our land grotesquely under-taxed?

I’ll let you ponder the answer to those questions for yourself.

While land value-rating municipalities continue to distort their rating base with minimum rates, effectively subsidising the owners of more valuable land, and capital improved value rating municipalities penalise construction, and states at the same time underutilise their land-taxing powers–and both these levels of Australian government continue to put their hands out to the federal government for assistance–there can surely be no greater advertisement than Dr Putland’s chart for implementing the recommendations of the Henry Tax Review for an all-in federal tax?






2 thoughts on “THE WAY THE 0.1% WANT IT: INCOME TAX THEN DAYLIGHT”

  1. Saw that over at Gav’s site. It’s a good chart.

    I have come to the general conclusion that calling something ‘progressive’ is a solid guideline to indicate it establishes an artificial distortion in the legal or economic system.

    I.E. progressive and parasitic are similar words.

    And yes, the middle class do this too, by owning their own land. It’s part of the reason there is a gap between them and the lower class.

    Land for most is not land for all, and land for most allows abuse by the few.

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