A report from Victoria's Parliamentary Budget Office, commissioned by the state opposition, shows Victorians will pay around $450 more property tax than people in New South Wales next financial year.
Research shows Victorians will pay the highest rate of property tax in the country
Is this being framed as a bad thing? I thought land tax was the arrow to pierce excessive landholders where it hurts. If the tax is too high, you give up the land rather than horde it like Smaug.
What a land tax needs is a preventative measure to stop landholders passing on the bill to the people they lord over. Then land tax good! Maybe it needs a threshold; some land ok, too much land BAD!
Or is this the ABC just being the shadow of their former self? Anyone got any details of the minutiae of this one?
I think land tax is better than stamp duty. It encourages people to not have more land than they need. Whereas stamp duty discourages people from moving/downsizing.
The article sounds as if it's just reporting the facts to me. There's one comment from the opposition and one response from the Labor govt. The rest of the article is explaining what's going on and why Vic rates are the way they are.
High levels of infrastructure spending = eventually, high levels of tax. A "big build" is not a "free build".
And infrastructure spending is almost certainly needed, so that isn't much of a point to argue on either. What the opposition should be asking is whether the right infrastructure is being built, as that will ultimately determine whether we get an improved standard of living out of it rather than just a big tax bill.