By Situation Theatre 1/2/2016
Miners, polluters and multinationals are fed up with government attempts to make them pay any tax, ever.
First there was the 2010 proposal for a 40% mining tax called the Resource Super Profit Tax, expected to raise $22.5 billion over its first four years. Poor old miners had to spend $27 million lobbying to kill the tax and only then reduced the tax rate to 30% under the Minerals Resource Rent Tax. They had to wait until 2014 before Tony Abbott scrapped the tax altogether.
Then there was the carbon tax, forcing polluters to give up $7.6 billion a year and for what? Humanity? The biosphere? Give me strength, profits before people, remember? This time polluters had to foot the bill for campaigning efforts to scrap the tax. Again they had to patiently wait until 2014 for this injustice to be revoked.
While thankfully for rates of private plane ownership we have seen corporate tax drop 20% in 30 years, companies still have to be an obscene 30% in tax!
And while we have heard that nearly 600 big companies paid no tax in 2013-2014, many more had to pay some tax!
And now there are whispers of an increased tax on company birthday cakes. When will the madness end?
BHP Billiton CEO Miles Stradbroke said “We usually get a yummy Black Forest gateau or scrummy lemon cheesecake for our miners on their birthdays. Sometimes we even buy the raw ingredients and make one of those fun Women's Weekly cakes you may have had as a kid. Now with talk of a GST increase, this government wants to make that nice gesture beyond our limited means. It’s disgusting.”
Here’s Liberal Opposition Leader John Hewson clearly explaining the concerns of miners and multinationals back in 1993.