Made so by some quite necessary changes over time of course. But also by a lot of government twiddling over the years for various far more questionable reasons.

But I surely think they are going to be chasing some loot soon -- The funding for the stimulus has to come from somewhere. And ultimately it’ll be the same story -- The truly poor can’t pay; It’s cost effective for the truly wealthy to hire well informed and competent professionals to ensure their payments are minimised; So there isn’t much question about who will pay.

That’s fine -- I don’t hate the wealthy. Or feel inclined to victimise the poor. But a far simpler system would assist us all regardless.

I guess the argument for complexity is that the real world is complex so the tax law needs to reflect that.

And I suspect that simplicity isn’t easily achieved. It would probably require a rebuild from the ground up. Rather than more twiddling around the edges which just tends to just add more complexity. And a lot of people make a lot of money from things being complex I guess.

But I’m a pretty simple minded man -- I occasionally let simple minded solutions run through my mind -- Like just having a flat rate of GST on everything -- We need more tax, we raise the rate. We need less tax, we drop the rate. Hmmm … A system that said the more you consume the more tax you pay -- End of story -- No taxes on producing -- Just one simple tax on consuming. Businesses, individuals, companies, trusts, charities, churches -- We don’t care what sort of entity you are -- We treat you all the same. Now that would be capitalism in action -- Lean, mean competitive producers who aren’t taxed, competing for reluctant consumers who are.

The pensioners would need some more money to compensate. And we might have to think about some things like multinationals that were producing here and exporting for consumption -- No problems, the minute it goes offshore it’s been consumed -- Pay the tax. As for vice versa -- Same deal -- The minute it hits the shore it’s been consumed -- Pay the tax. As in I’d tax at every discernible level through the supply chain. For both goods and services.

But it would run contrary to the whole consumerism type model our economy is based on. (Greg -- You’ll tell me why I’ve lost the plot here I hope??? Smile! ???)

Another thought: I can’t see them being too keen to change things too much if it involves throwing out 100 years of case law or whatever plus (presumably?) pretending the English legal precedents those judgements were based on never happened? Who’s to know -- It could even be unconstitutional or somesuch???

And ultimately this stuff does need to be defensible in the courts.

Just another rant -- Don’t mind me.

I really hope that there are a few fundamental changes to the tax system. I also hope that the changes that eventually get implemented are not ideologically driven and are actually put in place to improve the system for both individuals and business. The opportunity is there to improve on the system.

The recession could/should be turning nasty about then. And if the review reckons taxing the heck out of capital gains and locking all super away until the age of 67 (with super being meant for retirement and 67 being the new retirement age), Mr Rudd just might have some interesting decisions to make.

But my guess is he won’t make them -- Not then anyway -- Get the election out of the way and do it after that if necessary.

Depends though; If he has been successful in convincing everyone how bad things really are and looking sad, and that while he personally certainly doesn’t want to do such really horrible things, the big bad evil world has conspired against good, kind, nice and fiscally prudent little Oz to make such horrors necessary, he just could have a crack.

They’ll be “sampling the waters” so to speak in such regards a lot before taking any tough decisions. And weighing whether it might make them unacceptably unpopular compared to what the opposition is offering. And the opposition don’t seem to have anything much to offer -- So there probably won’t be much stress from that quarter.

But be very certain -- If you have any money, they want it. And if they figure there is advantage to them in keeping you working until you are 80, they will be trying to figure out how to do it … My best guess for now anyway?

Cheers and Smile!