The Turnbull Government

[luutzu]

I understand what you are saying, but you nor I can supply iron ore to China, unless you can afford to buy a mining lease a big amount of machinery and a big offloading facility.

The only source of that amount of money, comes from companies, with a large balance sheets.
What I'm pi$$ed about is, we don't tax them by volume, adjusted to market conditions.
Instead we tax the working class, to facilitate their off take, of our resources in the name of job creation.
When in reality the companies are using their tax free profits, to further reduce their workforce, thereby reducing further our tax base.
It is just another case of us bending over backwards, in the hope the companies will treat us better, when in reality they won't.
The end result is blatantly obvious, and both sides of politics are in it up to their teeth, it isn't party specific. It is class specific. IMO

The really sad part is the media, being sold a bunny all the time, same sex marriage, sexual harassment, now Barnaby Joyce.
Anything other than the main game, our economy and how we are going to stop the slide into a third World economy.
That would take too much effort on the reporters part, and probably cause them to lose a career. LOL

I'm pretty sure that if you and I are given crap load of mineral rich acreages for next to nothing (with deferred payment)... we can manage to convince a few bankers and investors to chip in for the machinery.

Yea, it's class warfare at the end isn't it. I mean, I don't see how politicians from either side could possibly understand what it's like to be that battling aussie. And that's assuming they're the nicer folks who would do something for their "master", what with being a servant and all, if they do understand the pain.

The Media... it's owned by corporate interests. When your bread and butter are useless ads from other corporations, you're not going to print stories that could in any way start a conversation.

 

[SirRumpole]

More analysis on corporate tax rates.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/company-tax-rate-cut-arguments-missing-evidence/9443874

 

[Tisme]

I'll just leave this to speak for itself

I understand how Oz has changed. However, unlike some here, I believe much of the change has been for the better. I don't long to go back in time 50 years. I don't think things were better then.

Today we have a much higher standard of living, are healthier and wealthier, opportunities are more widely available regardless of race or gender (I know you see this as a negative - I don't). Crime is very low in this country, despite the fear campaign peddled by our media and politicians.

I agree that the 'extreme left' is being given too much of a voice. However extreme views at the other end of the spectrum are also getting much louder. Fortunately I think most in this country sit somewhere in the middle and can see through a lot of the bullsh!t.

For sure we had a boring time of it back in the day, but the trade off for prosperity has been the frenetic pace of life and loss of leisure time. I'm sure there are arguments for and against, but my main beef is the undoing of the brief period in the 80's 90's when we felt like we were co-joined in the excitement of an enthusiasm for national pride and nation building.

We seem to have developed into a kind of bastard child of the Victorian era when speaking your mind required stoic navigation through a puritanical maze of the what was acceptable conversation and opinion; which ultimately led to major social upheaval of class revolt.

We do seem to have a class system developing of those opposing the forced behaviours being thrust on us by policed legislated and shout down behavioural socialism. We are being judged almost every minute of the day.

 

[SirRumpole]

Barnaby admires phone.

 

[PZ.]

Who's the frustrated dude next to him?

Looks like the little doer ("tell 'em the price son!")

 

[Logique]

For Nats Deputy Bridget McKenzie,
if you're not part of the solution, you may be part of the problem.

14 February 2018 - Barnaby Joyce's 'phantom' deputy Bridget McKenzie missing in action - http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...kenzie-missing-in-action-20180213-p4z09s.html - Typically, a deputy will be member of a party leader's praetorian guard; on the frontlines of the fight, doing everything they can to protect the boss.
But Senator McKenzie - who took over the deputy's role just two months ago, replacing Fiona Nash after she was felled by her dual citizenship - has been conspicuous in her absence. No TV, no radio, no interviews.
Several journalists who have approached her in the Parliament House halls in recent days say she has fled in the opposite direction...

 

[drsmith]

Barnaby I expect will tough out Parliament this week then take leave with Julie Bishop as acting PM next week. He will then resign as leader of the Nats and hence Deputy PM in the near future. He's finished in that role. It's now only a question of time and when the day comes, the Libs will breathe a sigh of relief.

 

[Tisme]

 

[SirRumpole]

There speaks a true patriot.

 

[bellenuit]

More analysis on corporate tax rates.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/company-tax-rate-cut-arguments-missing-evidence/9443874

Are the ABC saying companies should not be able to use carry forward losses against current year earnings and not be able to depreciate plant and equipment?

 

[SirRumpole]

The suggestion was that the carry forward of losses should not be indefinite.

 

[bellenuit]

The suggestion was that the carry forward of losses should not be indefinite.

I can't see why not. There are only indefinite to the extent that they exceed each successive current years profit, but since companies aim to be profitable in the long run, carry forward losses will be expended at some time. Provided the deductions against profit each year are legitimate (and the ABC hasn't shown, at least in the case of QANTAS, that they are not legitimate), then there shouldn't be an issue.

 

[SirRumpole]

I can't see why not. There are only indefinite to the extent that they exceed each successive current years profit, but since companies aim to be profitable in the long run, carry forward losses will be expended at some time. Provided the deductions against profit each year are legitimate (and the ABC hasn't shown, at least in the case of QANTAS, that they are not legitimate), then there shouldn't be an issue.

The issue is loss of government revenue.

Of course the deductions are legitimate under the law, the question is whether the law is appropriate.

Giving a company an indefinite tax holiday because of one bad year is pretty silly imo.

Shareholders are there to take risks as well as taking profits.

 

[luutzu]

Who's that commie going against "free trade"?

 

[luutzu]

The issue is loss of government revenue.

Of course the deductions are legitimate under the law, the question is whether the law is appropriate.

Giving a company an indefinite tax holiday because of one bad year is pretty silly imo.

Shareholders are there to take risks as well as taking profits.

It's socialised risk and losses but privatised wealth. That's what you get when you have friends in high places.

 

[PZ.]

It's a sticky wicket: removing the encouragement of business risk is akin to a reverse tariff and economic loss whilst doing nothing is kicking the fiscal can down the road at the expense of those that can least afford it.

 

[sptrawler]

We criticise the Royal Commission into our Banks, because they appear to be shafting Australia, yet they do at least pay tax.
Interesting part of the ABC investigation posted below.

How much tax did the big banks pay?
Ten years after the global financial crisis — which they are largely responsible for creating — some of the world's most prominent investment banks are collecting tidy sums of income in Australia and not paying corporate tax.

Among them is Malcolm Turnbull's old employer, Goldman Sachs, which recently won a lucrative contract with the NSW Government.

Described by Rolling Stone Magazine as, "the great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money", Goldman will be paid $16.5 million as the state's financial adviser on the sale of the $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway in NSW.

The investment bank generated revenue of $1.84 billion over three years but paid zero corporate tax.

Ditto for JPMorgan Chase which raked in $2.2 billion and hasn't paid corporate tax since at least 2013.

In one of the most audacious explanations advanced to the ABC for the non-payment of corporate tax, a spokesman for America's biggest bank said JPMorgan was still suffering the aftershocks of the financial crisis which meant its Australian operations continued to operate at a loss.

But late last year, it emerged JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a record $13 billion fine to US federal and state authorities in 2013.

The purpose of this fine was to settle claims it had misled investors in the years leading up to 2008.

Could the bank be writing that fine off against its Australian income? The spokesman didn't care to elaborate.

Shifting profits overseas

PHOTO: 88 per cent of people, polled by Reuters, think corporate tax avoidance leads to a culture which poses the question: "Can we get away with it?"(Supplied: Thomson Reuters)


Curiously, French bank BNP Paribas also appeared to have made some bad investments taxpayers were having to compensate it for.

It hasn't paid corporate tax for at least three years – like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase, American Express, Barclays Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The oldest foreign bank in Australia (resident here since 1881) told the ABC that despite attracting close to $10 billion in income since 2013, BNP failed to make any profits.

BNP said its losses, "included the write off of bad debts from lending to certain Australian domiciled companies".

As far as the local financial services sector goes, Babcock and Brown International stands out among the 2,000 company names in the Australian Taxation Office's public records.

Babcock and Brown remains the country's biggest corporate failure, having collapsed in 2009 with debts of more than $10 billion.

According to the ATO, Babcock and Brown International (a wholly owned subsidiary of the liquidated group, Babcock and Brown Ltd) reported $1.7 billion worth of income for the three years to 2016.

It paid no corporate tax.

CEO Michael Larkin, who has been with the Babcock group for 14 years, told the ABC the money was taxed elsewhere in the world where Babcock and Brown International engages in business.

He wouldn't be drawn on what the company does overseas, where or how much tax has been paid in other jurisdictions.

Australian tax law has allowed foreign companies to shift profits to affiliates or parent groups offshore in the guise of payments for services.

They've also been entitled to lend money to their Australian operations at inflated prices to create excessive tax deductions in Australia.

This can all work to render the Australian business loss-making, therefore not required to pay corporate tax.

Funny that the productivity commission suggests Australia's big four banks, should be open for more foreign ownership, as though that has worked for us in the past.lol
I just hope the left wing loonies don't decide to make the Banks the next target, they are on a roll, and no one can say anything against them.

 

[bellenuit]

The issue is loss of government revenue.

The government hasn't lost revenue. Tax is based on cumulative profits and if there are no cumulative profits, no tax is due. It's like saying that the government has lost revenue because if the tax rate was 5% higher, they would have made more tax revenue. But the tax rate is the tax rate.

Of course the deductions are legitimate under the law, the question is whether the law is appropriate.

Giving a company an indefinite tax holiday because of one bad year is pretty silly imo

The law is appropriate. Anything else would be grossly unfair.

If, over the life of a company, it makes no profit and all deductions were legitimate, why should the government feel they have missed out? During that time the company has employed people both directly and indirectly, provided a service that was presumably needed and possibly prevented an overseas company from extracting profits from Australia for providing a similar service.

Take a similar example. If a company providing a needed service makes a loss of $1M for each of the first 10 years of its existence but makes a profit of $1m for each of the next 10 years. The tax legislation as it exists says that no tax should be paid for each of those latter 10 years as all profit is covered by cumulative losses, so at the end of year 20, they have made a net profit of $0. But what is being suggested is that tax should have been paid on 1 or more of the profits of the last 10 years (depending on how long you want cumulative losses to be deductible). This would be grossly unfair. To make things easy, lets assume that this was a private company with just one owner and he/she had invested $20M up front. If no tax was deducted, owners equity at the end of the 20th year year would be $20M, what the owner invested. If tax was deducted in the latter 10 years, this would be reduced by the amount of tax paid. So he is being penalised for starting a company, employing people and providing a service.

Shareholders are there to take risks as well as taking profits.

They do take risks. When the company makes a loss, the value of their equity in the company falls (all things being equal).

It's very much like saying that if gambling gains were taxable, then a punter should be taxed on his most recent winnings, rather than his net winnings. When the gambler has a losing streak, he (like the investor) loses money. If his luck turns and he makes back his losses so that he breaks even, you are suggesting that he should be taxed on some of the recent winnings, even if he made no money overall.

Such policies would stifle investment.

 

[SirRumpole]

Such policies would stifle investment.

Such policies are in force in a lot of countries in the world. eg The US limits carry forwards or backwards to 3 years.

 

[bellenuit]

Such policies are in force in a lot of countries in the world. eg The US limits carry forwards or backwards to 3 years.

Actually from what I am reading the US allows carrying losses backwards for 2 years or forward for 20 years.

https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2017/5/15/the-net-operating-loss-carryback-and-carryforward