Jack Thrower is Deputy Research Director at the Australia Institute. He has published on a diverse range of subjects including higher education, transportation, energy and climate change, insurance, taxation and welfare, macroeconomic and fiscal analysis, superannuation, and industrial relations.
Last week’s mainstream and social media were full of handwringing about the Budget’s tax proposals, particularly changes to the capital gains tax (CGT) discount. A lot of this content focuses on the idea that the tax changes will stop young people from buying their own home by undermining their efforts to use the stock market or other ‘investment strategies’ to save for a house. This is nonsense.
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A gas reservation scheme won’t raise a cent in revenue. Some Australians might benefit from lower gas prices, but multinational gas companies would continue to make huge profits selling Australian gas overseas, while the Australian public receives little benefit. Australia will continue to export gas so cheaply that Japanese companies can profit on-selling gas.
Gas companies argue that a 25% gas export tax would threaten Japan’s energy supply - this is nonsense.
For decades, Australia has tolerated a rapidly growing gas industry that pays little tax and royalties, employs few people, pushes up gas and electricity prices for Australian families and businesses, and worsens the climate crisis. But it didn’t have to be this way, other countries show another path was and is possible.
BP have correctly uncovered that a tax on gas exports would raise more revenue than the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). However, some of their other claims in their submission to the Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources were misleading...
Will a gas export tax harm our diplomatic relationships? No. Foreign companies being sad about having to pay some tax in Australia is quite different to foreign countries losing trust in Australia as a reliable trade partner.
The claim is true. Japanese companies are on-selling a lot of Australian LNG and making a lot of profit while doing it.
The claim that half of voters rely on the Government for 'most of their income' that has been repeated across the media and by politicians, simply isn't true.
How can Australia solve the issue of child poverty?
Australia has a big “big car” problem; we have too many SUVs and utes, and we keep getting lots more of them.
