| Lots of people have argued in favour of the mining tax and a sovereign wealth fund in recent years. Paul Bloxham in the SMH on Sunday makes a useful additional suggestion (others may have also proposed this): include our (extractable) natural resources as assets on the government's balance sheet to help quantify the value of the foregone earnings (or opportunity cost).
To be clear, we already tax miners for monetising these resources through Australia's royalty system. At its simplest level, the argument goes that these royalties are sub-optimal. I think much more could be done to explain to the public why this is the case..............................................Full Article: Source
|