The aim of the carbon tax is to deter the use of carbon fuels by making them more expensive.
All goods and services have a carbon fuel component in their cost and price, and will bear a share of the carbon tax.
This carbon tax is thus a broad-based goods and services tax.
We do not need two GST's.
Therefore the simplest tax reform of all is to abandon all nineteen carbon-GST bills and also abolish all exemptions applying to the current GST.
To make this GST change palatable to the people, let's abolish all income taxes. We do not need that complex regulatory mess either.
Overnight people will have an incentive to produce things, create jobs and consume less – this has always been the path to real community prosperity.
Just three changes – simple, predictable, no loopholes.
Forget Tax Forum Talkfests and Tax Return Torture.
Just do it.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
