Tax inquiry hog-tied

THE very first graph in Treasury's discussion paper on tax provides almost the entire answer to fixing Australia's tax system. There's no real need for an extended inquiry with all sorts of noisy interest groups, rent-seekers and generalised main-chancers pushing their various barrows. Just take the big message and apply it. However that same graph also announces how Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have crippled the inquiry - and so real finalising tax reform - from the start. The duo have prohibited the inquiry from considering the core reform needed. This prohibition is made even worse by the fact that is also crucial to sensibly incorporating the proposed ETS - emissions trading scheme. It's bad enough that the ETS has already been compromised by the promise to protect petrol prices. Now the inquiry has been told to incorporate... [read full story]