Hallelujah, the company tax cuts have gone through and Australia’s tax rate is competitive again!
Now, I know this confuses some of you because it’s only companies with a turnover of less than $50 million and one of the big arguments that the Coalition put forward was that a higher rate of tax discouraged overseas investment which stifled jobs and growth. Huh, some of you are saying, it’s hard to see billions pouring into Australia to invest in those piddly little companies with a turnover of a paltry thirty million or so. But you’re overlooking the fact that companies can be broken up into lots of little companies each of which has a turnover of less than fifty million. In the event of the company inadvertently increasing its turnover above the magic figure, well, it can easily declare bankruptcy after distributing its assets to its Cayman Island subsidiary.
Which, of course, raises the very important point: How on earth are we meant to compete for the investment dollar when there are places that require no tax at all?
The answer is, of course, we can’t. If we want to be internationally competitive we need to lower our company tax rate so that there’s nowhere better in the world for people investing their money. And to do that, I’m proposing that we have a zero tax rate. That would encourage more investment which should, of course, lead to jobs and growth and when you have that everybody benefits. Even the unemployed who haven’t got off their backsides and borrowed a few million from the banks to start their own company, but in spite of this, they’ll benefit because there’ll be more jobs for all of us.
Of course, this presupposes that the companies can actually make a profit in this country, which is hard because of all the red tape and high wages. I mean, some of the biggest companies in the world struggle to make any money here! With workers here demand safe working conditions, we have lots and lots of regulation which is totally unnecessary because when was the last time you heard about a company director being injured at work?
And then there’s wages. People complained about losing their penalty rates and the government was ridiculed for pointing out that many of those on the minimum wage were in high income houses. That’s right! We have high income houses in Australia. It’s outrageous. How can companies make a profit when they have to pay their workers so much. During the Depression people were happy to work in exchange for food, but now they want a roof over their head as well. The government quite rightly points out that if wages were less then more employers would put people on.
Speaking personally, I’d be happy to hire dozens of workers were it not for the fact that they’d expect me to pay them.
No, the answer is simple. If we want this to be a prosperous country, we need to understand the logic of the Turnbull government and pursue it to its natural end point. Once companies pay no tax and once workers get no pay, then it’ll all be ok and jobs and growth will ensure that we have plenty of economic activity and there’ll be no unemployment and the budget crisis will go away…
Oh wait, I keep forgetting. It’s already gone away because nobody ever talks about getting back to surplus any more.
