Single tax solution

Re “Local Wages will mean local jobs“, (January 6). There is no consistent international evidence to show that discounted regional wage floors, or indeed generally lower employment standards, lead to improved rates of employment and prosperity. In fact, in general terms, the countries with the highest wage levels also have the best performing economies.

The real impediment to job creation is not our workplace relations system, it is our crooked taxation system. Current taxes favour big business monopolies and unproductive speculation in rising land prices and punish genuine entrepreneurship and productive work. The most efficient and equitable mode of public revenue collection is a ‘single tax’ based on unimproved land values, in lieu of taxes on labour and capital. Those geographic areas that are currently disadvantaged and struggling would boom under the single tax because, in line with their lower land values, their tax burden would be massively discounted.

Ronald E. Johnson

Association for Good Government ACT Branch

Manuka, ACT