Given my history as the world’s greatest Treasurer and second greatest PM (after God, I mean Gough), I am allowed carte-blanche to comment on anything I fucking well want. No fucking editor tells yours truly what to write!

So, I will write about the impact of Mahler in New York in the early 20th century.

Just kidding, that is next issue.

At the moment, ask yourself: Do you pay enough tax? I know the answer and you are wrong. You do not pay enough tax.

Look at the GST. It is one of the better taxes available. It is so good I would have implemented one if the weak stomached Bodgey hadn’t rolled me on it. A GST rate of 10% is too fucking low, and the concession on food and other stuff Meg Lees (aka @Drag0nista according to ASIO files in my hands as we speak) imposed is a distortion in the tax base we can not afford.

You are not as smart as me, so I will use small words to explain: A good tax is one that is easy to run, easy to understand, and fucking impossible to avoid.

GST is none of the above.

In the eleven years since Little Johnny passed the GST, we have a system that is more complex than it should be, causing the businesses to collect the tax to spend time struggling through the complexity of supply, coping with definitions of what is taxable and non-taxable. The courts are still clogged defining parts of the legislation. While this is what the courts are for, it imposes another cost on business and government. And the fact that some goods are taxed and some are not (like uncooked food and books) adds a distortion to the marketplace, as people will buy goods and services that are cheaper. Let’s face it, a good that has no GST is 11% cheaper than something that includes GST.

Simply raising the GST rate will give several benefits. Tax rate reductions for one. The inherent difficulty in avoiding payment of GST is another. Simplify the fucking thing, and we can get more bang for the buck with little effort on anyone’s behalf.

The GST is also failing its main purpose - to fund the states. The states never got the full funding they deserved with the GST. So every year they are forced to suck federal cock at COAG, while the federal government has more cash than a hooker at a Charlie Sheen drug orgy.

And each state deserves to get 100% of the GST raised locally. Instead of using one blunt tool to manage both the income and transfer element of the state’s income, use smaller, sharper tools. Those states with low population and large mining projects? A well designed and implemented mining royalty tax will work wonders. And those states with high population and massive industries - the carbon price system will work nicely. And the low population, low industry states? General funding from the commonwealth kitty through grants. The idea here is to promote growth in South Australia and Tasmania, so they do not stay parasites on the rest of the Commonwealth.

While we are at it, get rid of company tax altogether. It is just a withholding tax on individual income anyway. We can realise the fucking tax through Capital Gains (when shares are sold) or through Income tax (when a dividend is paid). All those subsidies and tax concessions? Gone, no more need for companies to suck on the teat of the taxpayers.

And for you people bleating the Mad Monk’s line of no new taxes, shut the fuck up. Reduce the cost of tax collection and ensure the efficiency of revenue collection, and the new Mining and Carbon Tax will be a godsend, if only because it will be far easier to collect than the GST. Instead of making every businessman and company a tax collector, only medium and large companies will be required to account and remit the royalty and carbon tax.

Why should you care? Because I say so? Seriously, without a good taxation base you do not get good government, and without good government, you do not get nice things. Unlike the lunatics in the Tea Party and US Republican Party, I believe big government is not the problem. Inefficient government is. When the ATO needs to spend 80% of its budget to collect 20% of its revenue, something has to give. Small businesses are not the best tax collectors, nor are individuals. The GST makes them so. Make tax easier to understand, make tax easier to collect, and you do not need a large agency to collect the revenue. Well that’s the theory anyway.

So, impose a Mining Royalty Tax, Implement a Carbon Tax, get rid of Company Tax, and we could leave the GST at 10%.

Fail to do any of the above, we need to increase the GST rate.

It is that simple. Treasury has been telling us for decades how to fix the fucking tax mess. Just no-one on any side of the political spectrum has the balls to fix it. And that is the third disappointing thing since my election loss and the Dismissal (in that order).

And by the way, Mahler slayed them in New York.

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