The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is very excitedby research from the Institute of Public Affairs which he says shows the ACT’s tax regime is comparatively unfriendly to business.
But what are the headline taxes?
— land taxes in the ACT are 38 per cent above the state/territory average; and
— land transfer duties are 10 per cent above the state/territory average.
So we’re clipping the tickets of real estate speculators? Great.
Having actually started businesses I can say that the registrar of business names is reasonably functional and not particularly onerous.
We already know that regulatory inspections are virtually non-existent in the ACT, the rest of the compliance problem is Commonwealth, so what’s Brendan moaning about?
More to the point what taxes does he want to raise or services to cut if he wants to help out the real estate speculators?