Treasury

Taxation reform as a political issue may not float many people’s boat but in an election year it promises to be as entertaining as a day in the life of Jack Bauer. We have two political leaders - Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott - who are equally unconvincing on the economy and who must grapple with a political hot potato.

The Rudd Government will soon respond to the final report of Australia’s Tax System Review Panel. The Panel, headed by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, will recommend the most comprehensive reform of the tax system in a generation.

Taxation reform is a policy challenge more complex than quantum mechanics.  Australia’s existing tax system has outdated Commonwealth-State financial arrangements and effective marginal tax rates that discourage people on welfare from participating in the workforce. Australia also faces significant economic challenges that are intimately related to the taxation system, such as an over-reliance on mining for national wealth; an aging population; and the need to reduce the carbon output of the economy.

Continue reading "Tax reform: It’s a lot like 24, only in years" »

In conventional Wayne Swan fashion, he was triumphant as he unveiled Treasury’s stern rebuttal of Frontier Economics research report into an alternative emissions trading scheme.

Given the Rudd Government’s deeply flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the Coalition had commissioned the report in order to inform discussions about a better carbon trading scheme. But yesterday Mr Swan informed reporters that a $3.2 billion hole had been found in Frontier’s alternative by the Treasury Department.

So where is the modelling? Mr Swan has refused to release it and until he does, Treasury’s alleged rebuttal amounts to zip.

Continue reading "Hey Wayne, show me the money problem with our ETS" »

We knew something was up when the party pies ran out. There was a whiff of the end of times that the cheap percolated coffee couldn’t quite hide.

And so it came to pass. The state Budget lock up was no more.

South Australia – first state to give women the vote, to ban plastic bags and forbid groups of people who ride motorcycles from hanging out together, has now become the first state to lose the lock up.

Continue reading "Fun it may be, but locking up journos is pointless" »

WAYNE Swan and his mates at Treasury put a lot of effort into producing pretty graphs whose sole intention seems to be to make us feel OK about all the bad news in the Budget. There’s little that needs to be said here except that a lot of this is clearly spin, but under the very last chart below I’ve pointed out a few things worth thinking about.

Continue reading "Tired of reading about the Budget? Here are the pictures" »

Here’s a confronting concept to grapple with first thing in the morning: opposition assistant treasury spokesman Tony Smith saying that Kevin Rudd’s deficit will last longer than the Second World War.

Or so long that, if your first child is born on budget night next Tuesday, they will have enrolled at primary school by the time the Budget is back in the black.

The Daily Telegraph’s Sue Dunlevy reports this morning that next week’s economic statement may contain a deficit figure as high as $70 billion, $10 billion higher than most other estimates in the pre-budget marketplace. Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd remain sanguine about the enormity of this figure.

But there’s one very big problem with their laid-back approach. 

Continue reading "Joyful crowd celebrates end of Rudd’s six-year deficit" »