Category: Funny Stuff
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Interesting tax deductions…
From Ogden and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation) [2016] AATA 32 (29 January 2016): MS HAMMOND: Okay. In that same income year you also claimed an amount of secretarial services? MR OGDEN: Yes. MS HAMMOND: $5,388. That’s a payment you allegedly paid your son, who was seven and a half, in the income year? MR OGDEN:…
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Fairfax at it again
The report will I think make it almost impossible politically for this government to sell its austerity program or its GST “reform” proposals. The mantra that Australia has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, looks hollow in the light of the low tax contribution from big business. And so Fairfax runs the same argument…
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Volumetric taxation
Estimates of the effective rates on excisable products in 2014–15 range from as low as $1.71 per litre of alcohol for low-strength non-commercial beer to $79.38 per litre of alcohol for spirits and ready-to-drink beverages. Estimates of the effective rates for wine range from $2.99 per litre of alcohol for a $15 four-litre cask through…
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Tax weirdness Down Under
I was recently asked by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland about weird taxes in Australia… And here was my response The seafarer’s tax offset This little present by the previous Labor government to the Maritime Union allows those who employ seafarers a 30% tax offset for the salaries they pay. The rationale for…
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Greece Taxes And Pools
In Greece, if you own a pool of over 25 meters squared under the tax law you are required to add an amount to your assessable income of sometimes close to 20,000 euros. The policy is designed to be both a luxury tax and an acknowledgement that you must have paid for the pool from…
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Common sense test… There is none at Fairfax…
In another weak attempt at understanding the tax system Fairfax are arguing we get rid of the tax system and replace it with a common sense test. They have tried every angle on why multinationals are naughty boys and failing at all of them, they are now arguing we should just use common sense at…
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A “fairness” tax?
In Belgium they have a tax called a “fairness tax”. It is a 5.5% tax on dividends paid by certain companies – on top of corporate taxes paid. Interestingly it is so “fair” that it is likely to be struck down in both the Belgium Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice. So when…
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Uniting Church replacing the Australian Taxation Office
I have never thought that the Uniting Church would be competing with the Australian Taxation Office but now they are… The Uniting Church has reportedly revealed it targeted international mining giant Glencore International with a private investigator to highlight the lack of transparency behind big multinationals. According to The Australian Financial Review, the church said in…
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Queensland. Beautiful one day, tax insanity the next…
The Queensland government raises about $44 billion a year in taxes, fees… About 20% of this amount comes from the GST that is collected by the Federal Government and passed on to the states and territories. This makes the GST almost as large as all the other taxes combined that the Queensland government charges (all…
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Can Fairfax economists please get a lesson in tax…
Coming on the back of five wrong articles in the SMH And the Age on a mythical $8 billion of unpaid company tax (notice that the only paper in the Fairfax fold not claiming there is missing company tax is the AFR – because they actually understand taxation) another Fairfax journalist tells us he can…
TaxRambling.com 