Seems like the Boiler is bubbling and overflowing to me.......Just saw on MSM news that CBA have 'decreased' home loan rates to 4.99 and 'the others' followed quite swiflty.......Something is wrong.
All the big 4 are heavily exposed to the domestic housing market. Any slow down in housing market spells trouble for the banks future profits margins and share price/market cap. With CPI coming in at 3% for the quarter, another rate cut is unlikely for some time so the banks are trying stimulate lending themselves by cutting their rates outside of the RBA cuts. The next step would be to cut spending by sacking employees
The banks lowered their 5 year fixed rate mortgages which is highly indicative of a strong belief that official rates will stay flat or even may be cut once more. Generally, projections seem to mixed for another rate cut in 2014, but the consensus is swinging towards rates will staying the same (unless the banks know something we don't).
next time I read someone complaining that it's a rip off to buy things in Australia and that it's better to buy off the net and avoid spending their money with Australian businesses I will direct them to this thread to see what happens when Australian businesses decide that they aren't going to pay expensive Australian wages and entitlements and instead they will shop for their staff overseas.
Why not direct them to stories about multi-national businesses offshoring hundreds of billions of dollars of profit to offshore low-tax jurisdictions and subsequently paying only a minuscule amount of Australian tax? Or stories of incumbent Australian businesses lobbying the government to protect their outdated business models from competition?
As they say on these hear internets.....'The Fix is in'!!!!! Its too late the damage is done.....and OZ is goin to end up one of 'the last' suppliers of anything???
Is there something wrong with that? It seems to make sense for them to be doing it (assuming they are) to me.
Absolutely. then I could link to information about the unbelievably excessive salary and entitlement packages that the unions extorted out of Toyota, Holden and Ford which led to the companies becoming unviable and closing down and gradually laying off their entire Australian workforces.
Yes, I get all that, standard story but let's dig into this a little deeper. Why do you want the government to have more money? It produces very little. The more money it gets, the bigger it gets and the worse it gets. The bigger the bureaucracy gets. Those bureaucrats have to justify their jobs somehow and it's usually by producing more hassles for us. So, knowing all this, why is is it bad for companies to be able to evade giving the government money? I would think that the best option would be to lower taxes, significantly, so that that money decides that it doesn't need to go offshore. Then that money can stay here and people can invest it here, thereby producing jobs. EDIT: tax base eroding? Do what any company would do if they weren't getting as much money. Cut costs. Cut jobs. Easy.
Tax evasion is a crime. I presume you meant tax minimisation. But yeah, I get what you're saying... There's a broader argument here about the nature of taxation and government, redistribution of wealth, corporate social contracts, inefficient resource allocation and the ideas of tax optimisation, etc
There are things to pay for and you seem to be fine with tax basically being optional, so what's the problem? Okay, so you want the government to spend less money on stuff and that's fine, but until they do then either you're happy to cover other people's obligations or you're not and think everyone should pay their fair share. I just wanted to put it out there that if you're volunteering to cover other people's tax burden, I'd be very grateful. In fact, unlike Apple, I'd actually say thank you.
Re: Apple, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-...ow-apple-pays-193m-tax-on-27b-revenue/5303426 Note the bolded. By what natural right does a person or government have a claim to another person's (in this case company) legitimately earned income? There is no natural right. Therefore to make the assumption that a government has a legitimate claim to the proceeds of a company's business activities and to pursue this claim (as per the link to the Treasurer's media statement) is to engage in immoral activity. It is immoral because whilst there is a legal claim, there is no basis in natural law and therefore the government is engaging in nothing more than theft. I rejoice at every $ that escapes the greedy clutch of governments. Rejoice! Halleluiah! Rejoice! Rejoice! Halleluiah! Rejoice! Halleluiah! It's a very simple issue. Companies leave our shores because it is cheaper elsewhere. So in order to attract or retain companies we have to make it cheaper here.
Sounds like someone else offering to pay my tax bill We are never going to be be able to compete with countries that charge zero percent income tax. Those countries raise the small amount of tax revenue they need to operate by taking a tiny clip of the ticket on the billion of dollars that flow through them in their escape from being taxed a realistic rate. The Cayman Islands, for example, doesn't need to raise much tax revenue at all to support a very decent lifestyle for their tiny population of 50,000 people, hence they manage very comfortably with a just a few indirect taxes like company registration fees and import duty. They've also got a banking sector stuffed with more than a trillion dollars of mostly hot money that's been earned in counties that would have no doubt like to use a bit of it to build roads and schools and hospitals and things to make life better for their citizens. Seriously, if you're okay with extremely profitable megacorps paying tax at taking-the-piss rates, you lose the right to bitch about the government wasting your tax dollars. There could be massive tax cuts all round if these companies were paying a fair share in exchange for the ability to make good profits here. So again, if you're so keen to see money kept out of the government's hands, you're more than welcome to pay my taxes for me.
