tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-808642298710115632012-05-21T12:12:43.027+10:00Economics as if location mattersGRPnoreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-51540017303110203422012-05-21T12:08:00.001+10:002012-05-21T12:12:43.034+10:00

Scenario 1: An employer, facing prosecution or bankruptcy for making a mistake with employees' PAYE tax, tells the ATO that if the case goes to court, “we will argue that the obligation to collect income tax from our employees at our own expense violates s.82 of the Constitution...” ... Scenario 2: As for Scenario 1, except that the employer has apparently made a mistake with GST... Scenario

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-74513414740678090622010-05-10T11:42:00.003+10:002012-04-05T14:56:10.726+10:00

The purpose of the trip was to present the paper “Land-Backed Debt as a Revenue Base” at the IU Global Conference, London, April 26–30, 2010. I left little time for anything else. Nevertheless... April 25: Royal Observatory, Greenwich I stayed at Bentinck House Hotel because it was about 100 metres from the conference venue (School of Economic Science, 11 Mandeville Place). Due to “

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-67150273242275210782010-04-27T17:56:00.004+10:002010-05-07T22:35:27.961+10:00

Presented on April 27, 2010, at the IU Global Conference 2010 (London, April 26–30) by Gavin R. Putland.* Abstract In the case of land subject to a mortgage, Henry George favoured treating the mortgagee (lender) as a part-owner for the purpose of the single tax. From the viewpoint of the beneficial owner (the borrower), this provision is equivalent to compensation for the debt against the land

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-56553467519946812122009-10-21T14:18:00.002+11:002012-04-05T15:02:13.243+10:00

The most important point about “free trade”, which Martin Feil completely misses (“Trade deals are a losing gamble”, The Age, Oct.21), is that it doesn't mean what it says. The trick is that “free” has been redefined to mean “non-discriminatory between domestic and foreign origins”. As long as your trade laws don't distinguish between local and foreign products, trade can be taxed, regulated,

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-66609677590600657092009-09-11T14:53:00.000+10:002009-12-11T14:53:45.582+11:00

Andrew J. Gunter writes in the Age (Letters, Sep.11, 2009): Make a stand THE Housing Industry Association's Gil King says that “any policies that aim to speed up development applications and increase Victoria's housing stock are welcomed” (The Age, 10/9). So does the HIA support the replacement of stamp duty and payroll tax with land tax collecting the same revenue? The replacement of local

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-83597544555113241342009-09-04T17:49:00.004+10:002012-04-17T17:57:36.705+10:00

One reason for Australia's chronic current account deficit is payroll tax, which inflates prices of Australian products, including exports and import replacements. This suggests that payroll tax is an excise, in which case it violates s.90 of the Constitution. In the last relevant High Court case, namely Ha v. NSW (1997), the minority accepted a narrow definition of excises, saying that s.90

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-54738107033705184502009-08-18T14:30:00.001+10:002012-04-05T15:05:58.389+10:00

Gill Vivian's story (‘Wrong’ rates ping home builder, POST, 15/8, p.7) neatly explains why local rates should be levied on “site values” — that is, values of land and airspace, including any attached building rights, but excluding actual buildings. The present system levies rates on the combined values of land and buildings, so that owners are penalized for improving their properties and “

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-84111844536598384082009-08-16T23:14:00.002+10:002012-04-05T14:51:57.193+10:00

According to the definition accepted by the High Court of Australia in Ha v. NSW and earlier cases, the duties imposed by State governments on initial registrations of new cars (and new motorbikes, caravans and trailers) are duties of excise, in contravention of s.90 of the Constitution. That means they're illegal — so illegal that no parliament can legalize them. Contents What is the

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-5328780750529520242009-08-15T21:56:00.001+10:002012-04-05T15:22:51.129+10:00

Contrary to Peter Costello's latest pontifications in the Fairfax press, sticking to “broad policy” that “applies equally to people of like circumstances” does not prevent cronyism in government, but merely ensures that the legislators will be bought and blackmailed on larger issues by larger coalitions of interests. And on Costello's watch as Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, the

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-43543636723577133912009-08-11T22:07:00.000+10:002009-09-05T22:08:00.470+10:00

Differential rating causes a problem: it lets councils give special favours to special interests. So councils like it. So the Victorian Government allows it only for capital-improved-value rating, which the Government prefers in spite of its economic deadweight. That is the context of the following letter by Andrew J. Gunter in the Age (Aug.11, 2009): Different thinking EVERYONE'S in

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-27923389360983451902009-06-25T06:49:00.001+10:002012-03-09T18:34:41.553+11:00

A submission to the Treasury review on Australia's Future Tax System, by Gavin R. Putland.* Summary If we must have personal income tax, responsibility for withholding PAYE tax should be shifted from employers to financial institutions. If we must have compulsory superannuation, the present 9% employer-funded contribution should be rolled into wages and salaries, and future contributions

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-85413052118659343902009-04-02T22:48:00.004+11:002010-02-26T17:13:14.774+11:00

A submission to the Senate Inquiry into the investment of Commonwealth and State funds in public passenger transport infrastructure and services, by Gavin R. Putland, BE PhD.* Abstract The benefit of public transport is manifested as uplifts in land values in the serviced locations. The alleged difficulty of funding public transport is an illusion that arises because governments, at the

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-66330192340335849292009-03-05T16:35:00.004+11:002010-02-26T17:13:35.866+11:00

BY MR R. MURRAY SMITH, C.M.G.* One of the most intimate friends of the late Mr Max Hirsch was Mr R. Murray Smith, C.M.G., who was asked to-day to say something about Mr Hirsch, as he appeared to his friends. “It gives me great pleasure to say something in eulogy of my old and very dear friend, the late Mr Max Hirsch. He was a man of many parts, and, as you know, was industrious in

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-72290448408261246322009-03-04T11:16:00.003+11:002010-01-05T11:21:24.187+11:00

A private cable message, received in Melbourne, stated that Mr Max Hirsch, one of the best known public men in Victoria, had died at Vladivostock, at 6.30 this morning. Mr Hirsch, who left Melbourne some time ago on an extended tour, had not been in good health. Death was due to cancer on the liver. The deceased gentleman was a native of Cologne, Germany, where he was born on

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-57763777587056772182009-02-02T11:02:00.000+11:002009-02-16T18:09:14.432+11:00

Gavin R. Putland writes on the Letters Blog at the Australian: Rudd is nаked too Kevin Rudd has declared that the interventionists are back in charge, the non-interventionists having “no clothes” due to the global recession. He conveniently forgets that the non-interventionists took over after the interventionists were discredited by the recession of the mid 70s, but conveniently remembers

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-7740895858304172822009-01-25T10:25:00.001+11:002012-04-13T10:36:07.139+10:00

Conventional wisdom holds that replacing income tax with a consumption tax would be regressive, and that it would devalue past savings by raising prices. Both objections assume that gross wages and salaries would stay the same. If, instead, net wages and salaries stay the same, both objections disappear.* Contents More exports, fewer imports, more jobs No losers What about housing

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-89440218281141497672008-11-20T17:22:00.001+11:002009-07-23T01:24:08.336+10:00

Three years and five months after warning that “the next adjustment of Australian interest rates would more properly be down,” Bryan Kavanagh claims vindication in the Age, noting that the Reserve Bank raised interest rates by 1.75 percentage points in three years, then dropped them 2 percentage points in three months — or two months from meeting to meeting. (Since then, of course, the Reserve

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-10768212517192338442008-05-19T15:35:00.000+10:002012-04-05T15:36:02.154+10:00

The first question for Ken Henry's tax review is whether we need taxes at all. If retirees can live on income from assets instead of burdening the taxpayer, why can't governments do the same? An asset portfolio yielding just enough income to replace Federal taxes will have the same market value that the power to impose or avoid those taxes would have, if that power were a tradeable asset.

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-51396981007176279812008-04-03T16:14:00.001+11:002010-02-26T17:14:05.253+11:00

Gavin R. Putland marks an anniversary. Forty years ago, as Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the Promised Land and prophesied “I may not get there with you,” a quiet revolution in economic theory was beginning, which would ensure that Dr. King's hearers, except perhaps the occasional Caleb or Joshua, wouldn't get there either. The architects of the revolution didn't plan it that way, but that's

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-38565296541544583742008-03-28T11:37:00.001+11:002009-02-16T12:40:55.958+11:00

Australia's residential land market is a bubble about to burst. Because property is used as collateral for loans, a bursting bubble leaves lenders and borrowers exposed, causing a recession. It is therefore “irresponsible and incorrect” to blame “spiritual emanations from U.S. subprime mortgage lending,” says Bryan Kavanagh. The truth, as he writes in this article in the Age, is that “we have

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-61201528237912254002008-02-28T19:25:00.003+11:002010-02-26T17:14:39.098+11:00

The global economic crisis from a non-neoclassical viewpoint Final Edition — February 2008 Editorial: The myth of progressive taxation By “progressive” income taxation and “means-tested” welfare, governments make a great show of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Of course this pretense conveniently ignores such things as “business” deductions, concessional taxation of

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-63750610292411110892008-01-31T18:42:00.002+11:002010-02-26T17:14:52.789+11:00

The global economic crisisfrom a non-neoclassical viewpoint January 2008 Editorial: Will we all be Keynesians again? As a U.S. recession looks more and more like a done deal, many will argue that this is a great time for America to invest in public infrastructure: railways, bus services, roads, water supplies, underground electrical and communications cables, sewerage, drainage, schools

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-82859227051252018652008-01-26T16:09:00.000+11:002009-12-30T16:10:25.159+11:00

It is appropriate that the surge in Melbourne home prices has rekindled debate on conveyancing stamp duty, but not so appropriate that the discussion has focused on the size of the duty instead of its base. Reducing the size of the duty must have a budgetary impact, but changing its base need not. Stamp duty is a transfer tax on the total value of a property including the building(s) and the

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-4450724622376104532007-12-27T17:24:00.003+11:002010-02-26T17:15:07.696+11:00

The global economic crisisfrom a non-neoclassical viewpoint December 2007 Editorial: The tragedy of the so-called “commons” There is no such phenomenon as the “tragedy of the commons”. The phenomenon that is usually called by that name arises because the so-called “commons” are treated not as belonging to all, but as belonging to no one — in other words, because they are not commons at all.

GRPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80864229871011563.post-92087275392082013562007-11-28T16:34:00.003+11:002010-02-26T17:15:23.078+11:00

The global economic crisisfrom a non-neoclassical viewpoint November 2007 Editorial: The immovable tax One obvious consequence of Ricardo's law (see last month's editorial) is that a tax on the rental value of land cannot be “passed on” in the rent of the land; that is, it cannot be shifted onto a tenant. The maximum rent that the landlord can extract is the margin by which the productivity

GRPnoreply@blogger.com