Redesign resources taxes

Comments on Michael Stutchbury “Quick truce unlikely in resource tax war”, 19/06/2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/quick-truce-unlikely-in-resource-tax-war/story-e6frg6zo-1225881544801
The government has to abandon the RSPT at the current form and break the link between the planned RSPT revenue and surplus in 3 years time.

It can find savings from reducing public service expenditure just as the opposition proposed.

There is no point in making some cosmetic changes to a fundamentally flawed tax design.

It needs to redesign the resources tax from scratch. It needs to clearly define super profits for the resources industry and tax on those super profits. It needs to exempt the existing operations, but with an extra super profits provision to tax future extra super profits if minerals prices go up further.

It does not need to treat different minerals differently, if the super profits are properly and clearly defined because low value quarries don’t have super profits.