CEO PULSE: An unfair tax feast Australia?s CEOs are hoping Wayne...

CEO PULSE: An unfair tax feast

Australia?s CEOs are hoping Wayne Swan is not really as silly as he looked in Toronto, and that he comes back from the G20 meeting a wiser man than when he left.

As he strutted around Toronto saying: ?we?re miles ahead of the game, you know?, other finance ministers would not have been envious, they would have been laughing. Meanwhile his colleagues back home are desperately trying to find a way out of the RSPT mess he left behind.

CEOs surveyed in the monthly Business Spectator Accenture CEO Pulse want Prime Minister Julia Gillard to fix the RSPT fast, and preferably drop the tax entirely ? which is remarkable when you consider that the resource super profits tax is financing a cut in the company tax rate.

Most of the CEOs surveyed are not in the mining industry are therefore beneficiaries of the RSPT through the proposed cut in the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. But they?re not happy about that ? they are too worried about the impact of the RSPT on Australia?s international reputation for stable and sensible government.

In Toronto Swan was apparently oblivious to this ? as other advanced nations committed themselves to halving their deficits by 2013, our Treasurer was proudly declaring that Australia is ?ahead of the game? with its budget scheduled to move into surplus by 2013-14.

Oh right. That must be why he and the Labor caucus sacked the Prime Minister.

Other countries could slash their deficits too if they taxed their most profitable industries out of existence, but they?re not doing that.

Instead they?re laughing behind Swan?s back and working to persuade the mining companies and their financiers to build projects in their countries instead.

The fact that Australia?s business leaders are too concerned about the RSPT to be happy about the 2013-14 surplus is shown by the Business Spectator Accenture CEO Pulse: Australia?s CEOs ? and the rest of the population for that matter ? have marked the government?s performance on the economy down since the budget in May, not up.

The CEO Pulse score on ?managing the economy? is now 4 out of 10; in May it was 4.2. In February it was 5.4 out of 10.

By posturing in Toronto about getting the budget back into surplus in 2013 while his colleagues back home are trying to negotiate a deal with the mining industry, the Treasurer just made it harder for the government to give up the revenue.

The miners, CEOs generally, the PM and Labor MPs are now all desperate to end this appalling argument about Swan?s and Kevin Rudd?s RSPT, and having locked his government into a surplus in 2013-14, it?s up to Swan to find the solution.

When we asked CEOs what advice they would give the new Prime Minister, there was no mention of the deficit. They focused on the RSPT and the unions.

They want a deal with the mining industry that stops Australia being an international laughing stock. The mining industry wants the tax taken off existing mines and they want the rate reduced.

But Gillard needs the $9 billion per annum revenue from taxing existing mines at 40 per cent because she can?t now go to an election with a deficit for any more than another two years. That means Swan and Treasury Secretary Ken Henry must find the money from somewhere else.

They got us into this mess; they can get us out.
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From : The Business Spectator
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/RSPT-mining-tax-rent-tax-Rudd-Gillard-pd20100629-6USUE?OpenDocument&src=kgb