It’s Garnaut day here at MB with the good Professor moving onto the disastrous mining tax at the Senate inquiry. From AAP:
Prof Garnaut blamed state government royalties and the ability of larger established miners to lower their mining tax exposure, by citing the market value of existing mines, as partly responsible for the lower tax take.
He told the committee that iron ore miners’ profits would probably never be as high as they are now again in his lifetime.
Yet lower commodity prices were being blamed by the miners for the MRRT not raising revenue.
State royalties hurt smaller projects and discouraged investment by taxing them, but the resource rent tax was better at taxing highly profitable projects and not marginal ones, Prof Garnaut said.
Garnaut basically invented mining rent taxes with Anthony Clunies Ross in the early eighties petroleum resource rent tax so he’s good person to ask. Now, somebody fix it.
