Articles from We are all dead.

Imagine if everyone with a surname starting with the letter C didn’t have to pay income tax. For some arcane reason, back in the mists of time when the tax was introduced in Australia, those with a ‘C’ name were completely exempted, and the exemption remained on the books, stubbornly resistant to efforts to remove it.

Tasmania has set an unfortunate record: it’s the first Australian state in which less than half of all adult men are employed full time. In the lead-up to the financial crisis, the proportion of Tasmanian men in work soared, rising faster than the national ratio, but it has since plummeted. In February 2013, just 48.3% of Tasmanian men aged 15 and over were in full-time work; this was 8.3 percentage points below the national figure of 56.6%.

Imagine that it’s grand final day, only rather than being the massive television spectacle we’re accustomed to, no cameras or journalists are allowed inside the MCG. No spectators are allowed to communicate the score with anyone outside the ground.

I can understand why libertarians might favour a flat  tax on superannuation contributions and on ordinary income. I disagree vehemently with that position, but it’s logically coherent to me. Personally, I favour a progressive tax on both of those things, and I think that position also makes sense.