Showing posts with label Tax Reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tax Reform. Show all posts

Friday, July 2, 2010

Andrew Forrest...the investor's friend

Share |
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald provides a clue to how democracy works. If you are poor and don't matter, you attempt to contact your representative and hope they can help you. Unless they are helping themselves to your wealth, they can be accommodating. The system is flawed because its arbitrary. Its arbitrary because the government has to justify expropriating wealth. Common law does not allow stealing, but statutory law does. That's right....logic will support the adoption of taxation. You need political extortion or coercion to achieve that. The parliament and 'representative democracy' were merely concepts conjured to legitimatise expropriation or stealing. There is no justification for it. If you find any pretence of one, let me know, and I will repudiate it. Really folks! There is no argument. Attempt to offer one, and I will repudiate it.
People don't normally take such issues to the High Court. Maybe Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals will be the first. I hope he can seize upon the right arguments. This is where I fear his legal counsel will be the problem. They will not have any idea as well how to fight this battle. One of his biggest problems is a conflict of interest within the judiciary. The problem is they are appointed/selected by government, and they are paid by government, on the same basis as a bureaucrat. They are safe people by nature; generally not open to challenging a tradition of expropriation. The problem is it comes down to the spectre of a flawed philosophy of law which is based on arbitrary interpretation rather than any coherency test of conceptual validity. I would love to see Forrest test the system. I am glad there are still a few billlionaires left in the world who can afford to enter the justice system without much to lose.
That's right...we have been a culture of perpetrators and victims since well before the Magna Carta (12th century). The creation of parliaments was just a process for 'modernising expropriation'.
We must understand that Andrew Forrest is the embodiment of a asset owner. The guys at BHP and Rio Tinto are 'asset managers', i.e. CEOs with no equity in the business. They have no significant interest in the outcome. So what does it matter what they think about this tax? Nothing. Andrew Forrest is your friend because he, like you, is an asset owner. The great news is that he has more to lose than you, so he stands ready to take this 'Resource Rent Tax' issue to the High Court if necessary. But its not enough to test matters in the High Court because our legal system is flawed. It would be helpful if Australians differentiated 'asset owners' from 'asset managers'. Andrew Forrest is a fellow investor like you or I. The CEOs of Rio Tinto and BHP are really politicians or 'middlemen' only interested in taking their cut. If they can convince the board that they have no control over this issue, then they have their options incentive adjusted, and they might even come out ahead. Meanwhile, it is shareholders who suffer.
------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Tax grap prompts WA secession talk

Share |
This article on ABC News highlights the anguish that Kevin Rudd is causing. Australia was one country before Rudd exerted his power. Now there is talk of seccession of WA from the Australian Federation. I am from NSW, but I would happily move to WA if this is the way the Federal government wants to go, and I think its a very clever move, because its easier to blackmail a state population than the whole country. Kevin will lose this one.
This is clever politics in WA, and I fully support the move. Maybe the new nation of WA can be called "Ruddless" and the rest "Ruddy-Hell". But I would prefer to see Rudd step down, or the Governor General remove him. Unbelievable that he thought he could get away with this cheap politics. I also think the mining industry has the capacity to seek a High Court resolution to this under the Constitution. I think Rudd has breached the 'good government' spirit of the law. This is indeed thought provoking for Australians. I hope they come to reflect more on ethical matters, and stop living off the miners back. REMOVE RUDD!!!
We all owe a great debt to the mining industry for creating so much wealth. I personally think its not just owned by miners. I think there is some justification for some of the money going back to the public, but not Rudd's hands, not his way, and not the amount he wants to take. He is an extortionist preying on the interests of the a minority.
---------------------------------------------------------
Author
Andrew Sheldon
Resource Rent Tax
Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Monday, May 3, 2010

Unfairness of tax system

Share |
The unfairness of the tax system. What I find particularly annoying with government is its arbitrariness. The tax that it targets certain groups because:
1. They earn more, so are judged to have more capacity to pay
2. They have less capacity to dodge the tax
3. They have less political power to lobby government because they are a minority interest

Case in point. The Australian (Rudd) government is pursuing higher taxing revenues from Australian miners because it expects commodity prices to be higher in the future. At the same time Google pays almost no tax in Australia. I have no problem with Google paying no tax because I dare say that the Australian government offers no benefits to Google that Google doesn't pay for. The problem I have is that miners have no capacity to take their business or expenses offshore like Google.
The problem is this arbitrary tax system is not fair. It is not fair because it is not based on user pays principles. Google earned revenues (estimated) of $600 million plus in the last financial year, and paid $0.7 million in income taxes. Mining companies earned revenues of $60 billion and paid $8 billion in tax.
The Australian government is going after the miners because its easier. Where is the justice in that? Frankly I would simply prefer it if the miners and Google paid for what they used, and we did the same. Those that want library services or to use a community swimming pool paid for them.
If you think principles are 'unrealistic' then I suggest you examine the implications of your arbitrary politics, because they end up in disempowering everyone, everyone jumping through hoops to clear laws, everyone creating all types of loop holes. It results in a great deal of complexity which need not exist, giving a lot of people anxieties they don't need....if not worse. Who does all this affect the most - the poor - who it was supposed to help. Yes, that is right. Income tax was first levied on the rich, and now the poor pay the highest rates, as businesses use all sorts of schemes (i.e. loopholes, legal or otherwise) to evade tax, which they would never openly display their discontent with, in the fear that they might be the subject of an audit.
---------------------------------------------
Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Support TAX REFORM Programs

Share |

’Global Warming Misconceptions - View the table of contents!

Governments this year have ramped up their global warming propaganda, but in truth, just how certain is global warming. In the process of preparing a consulting report, we undertook some research and were startled by government policy. We will show that the propaganda being financed by government is shamelessly creating hysteria for the sake of political expediency.

Global Warming Misconceptions - Download the table of contents or buy this report at our online store for just $US9.95.