The one thing that unites people about the mining tax is that it is not the best designed tax ever proposed. That should hardly be a surprise given that it was bashed out between the new Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the three biggest mining companies in the first days of her taking office from Kevin Rudd. A well-considered and economically more efficient mining tax proposal was developed by the former secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry. The biggest problem with Henry’s proposal was its complexity, a problem compounded by Kevin Rudd who rather than release the Henry Tax Review in early 2010, decided to keep it to himself until the middle of the year.
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