Monday, May 17, 2010

Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!!! - Resources Super Profit Tax (RSPT)

A week or so ago I posted about the Resources Super Profit Tax (RSPT). Clearly from the comments received, there are a variety of opinions on this in the community. It's good to discuss these issues.


As part of my post I took the time to very clearly differentiate between the profits made by the mining companies and the salaries paid to the senior employees of these companies. I felt it was an important thing to do because much of the community are not directly involved in business or investing and can easily confuse these two quite different matters. 


Having now seen the "class war" advertisements launched yesterday by the CFMEU (Union), I feel vindicated in carefully make that distinction. These advertisements are using an emotive argument that targets the salaries of the CEOs of the mining companies.


This is totally irrelevant to the discussion of RSPT. It is clearly just an attempt to capitalize on and amplify this misunderstanding that exists in much of our community. The RSPT does nothing, zip, zilch about the salaries paid to mining executives. Those salaries will likely not change one iota under the proposed RSPT regime. It is deceptive and disgusting advertising.


If our Government wanted to target the income of these individuals then they could do so with a "personal super income tax". Personally, I would listen carefully to such a proposal. Of course such a proposal would have to address the incomes of ALL Executives - not just the mining executives.



1 comment:

  1. I thought it was the AWU forrest.

    It hasnt been shown on the state owned taxpayer funded ABC, which is probably why I havent seen it...

    ReplyDelete