STATEWIDE AVERAGE MILLAGE RATE ESTIMATES

This statistical sheet gives the statewide average millage rate estimates from 1992 to 2014 broken down by tax year, millage rate, applicable fiscal year and growth rate.

Universal free trade : by means of a property, income and wages tax /

Butler Stacks copy: Includes appendix and press reviews of author's other works (12 additional pages at end)

The civil divisions of the county of Dorset, methodically digested and arranged, comprising lists of the civil ministerial officers, magistrates, and subordinate officers; with a complete nomina villarum, in four parts; a list of the county and other bridges; together with the annual value of real property; amount of the land tax ... and the rules and orders for regulation of the practice of the quarter sessions ... Also, an appendix, containing abstracts of returns of charitable donations ...

Mode of access: Internet.

Property Exchange Rules Offer Tax Opportunities for Hotel Owners

One strategy often overlooked by hospitality owners in developing cost-saving strategies is the use of like-kind exchanges to acquire property. The author reviews some alternative methods of like-kind exchanges, which may not only provide new business opportunities for the hospitality owner, but lucrative tax benefits as well.

Revitalising the Australian Shipping Industry through Tax Reform: Alchemy or Piracy?

The Australian Federal Government has recently passed reforms to the shipping industry. These reforms are aimed at removing barriers to investment in Australian shipping, fostering global competitiveness and securing a stable maritime skills base. The shipping reform package adopts a two pronged approach designed to achieve its stated goals by providing both a ‘stick’ and ‘carrot’ to industry participants. First, the ‘stick’ is delivered via the provision of tighter regulation of coastal trading operations through a new licencing system, along with the introduction of a civil penalty regime and an increase in existing penalties. Second, the ‘carrot’ is delivered via taxation incentives available to vessels registered in Australia where the registrant meets certain specified criteria. These incentives, introduced through amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and contained in the Tax Laws Amendment (Shipping Reform) Act 2012, provide five key tax incentives to the shipping industry. From 1 July 2012, amendments give effect to an income tax exemption for qualifying ship operators, accelerated depreciation of vessels, roll-over relief from income tax on the sale of a vessel, an employer refundable tax offset, and an exemption from royalty withholding tax for payments made for the lease of certain shipping vessels.

The game of clones and the Australia tax : divergent views about copyright business models and the willingness of Australian consumers to infringe

It is often said that Australia is a world leader in rates of copyright infringement for entertainment goods. In 2012, the hit television show, Game of Thrones, was the most downloaded television show over bitorrent, and estimates suggest that Australians accounted for a plurality of nearly 10% of the 3-4 million downloads each week. The season finale of 2013 was downloaded over a million times within 24 hours of its release, and again Australians were the largest block of illicit downloaders over BitTorrent, despite our relatively small population. This trend has led the former US Ambassador to Australia to implore Australians to stop 'stealing' digital content, and rightsholders to push for increasing sanctions on copyright infringers. The Australian Government is looking to respond by requiring Internet Service Providers to issue warnings and potentially punish consumers who are alleged by industry groups to have infringed copyright. This is the logical next step in deterring infringement, given that the operators of infringing networks (like The Pirate Bay, for example) are out of regulatory reach. This steady ratcheting up of the strength of copyright, however, comes at a significant cost to user privacy and autonomy, and while the decentralisation of enforcement reduces costs, it also reduces the due process safeguards provided by the judicial process. This article presents qualitative evidence that substantiates a common intuition: one of the major reasons that Australians seek out illicit downloads of content like Game of Thrones in such numbers is that it is more difficult to access legitimately in Australia. The geographically segmented way in which copyright is exploited at an international level has given rise to a ‘tyranny of digital distance’, where Australians have less access to copyright goods than consumers in other countries. Compared to consumers in the US and the EU, Australians pay more for digital goods, have less choice in distribution channels, are exposed to substantial delays in access, and are sometimes denied access completely. In this article we focus our analysis on premium film and television offerings, like Game of Thrones, and through semi-structured interviews, explore how choices in distribution impact on the willingness of Australian consumers to seek out infringing copies of copyright material. Game of Thrones provides an excellent case study through which to frame this analysis: it is both one of the least legally accessible television offerings and one of the most downloaded through filesharing networks of recent times. Our analysis shows that at the same time as rightsholder groups, particularly in the film and television industries, are lobbying for stronger laws to counter illicit distribution, the business practices of their member organisations are counter-productively increasing incentives for consumers to infringe. The lack of accessibility and high prices of copyright goods in Australia leads to substantial economic waste. The unmet consumer demand means that Australian consumers are harmed by lower access to information and entertainment goods than consumers in other jurisdictions. The higher rates of infringement that fulfils some of this unmet demand increases enforcement costs for copyright owners and imposes burdens either on our judicial system or on private entities – like ISPs – who may be tasked with enforcing the rights of third parties. Most worryingly, the lack of convenient and cheap legitimate digital distribution channels risks undermining public support for copyright law. Our research shows that consumers blame rightsholders for failing to meet market demand, and this encourages a social norm that infringing copyright, while illegal, is not morally wrongful. The implications are as simple as they are profound: Australia should not take steps to increase the strength of copyright law at this time. The interests of the public and those of rightsholders align better when there is effective competition in distribution channels and consumers can legitimately get access to content. While foreign rightsholders are seeking enhanced protection for their interests, increasing enforcement is likely to increase their ability to engage in lucrative geographical price-discrimination, particularly for premium content. This is only likely to increase the degree to which Australian consumers feel that their interests are not being met and, consequently, to further undermine the legitimacy of copyright law. If consumers are to respect copyright law, increasing sanctions for infringement without enhancing access and competition in legitimate distribution channels could be dangerously counter-productive. We suggest that rightsholders’ best strategy for addressing infringement in Australia at this time is to ensure that Australians can access copyright goods in a timely, affordable, convenient, and fair lawful manner.

Inefficient tax slugs all homebuyers

Housing affordability is more than just house prices. It also includes ready access to public transport, schools, good road networks, and of course access to all the basic utilities. However, local governments don’t have the money to build all the infrastructure new housing estates need. So developer charges were introduced as a “user pays” method of funding new urban infrastructure. These charges are levied on property developers by local authorities at the time of planning approval. Some think these costs are passed back to the original land owner by way of lower land prices. But property developers claim these charges are instead added on to new house prices, with a negative impact to housing affordability. When new house prices increase, existing house prices are also dragged up, extending the housing affordability issue throughout the community. However, new research by QUT has uncovered evidence that these costs are not merely passed on to homebuyers, but are passed on at significantly over-inflated rates. In an Australian first, the study empirically examines the impact of developer charges on housing affordability, providing evidence that developer charges are passed on to all homebuyers in the community. So while policy makers think they are charging developers for the provision of infrastructure in new communities, the cost is really being borne by all homebuyers.

Statutory licences and third party dealings: Property analysis v statutory interpretation

Statutory licensing schemes are proliferating as a means of regulating commercial activity, resource exploitation and activities harmful to the environment. Statutes often declare that entitlements are non-transferable or are transferable only with approval or subject to conditions. Some entitlements, such as resource consents issued under the Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ), are declared not to be property. Despite these statutory declarations, entitlements are often held to be transferable in equity or to be property for the purposes of resolving private disputes. Recently, in Greenshell New Zealand Ltd v Tikapa Moana Enterprises Ltd, the High Court of New Zealand indicated that a resource consent was property that could support a claim for relief against forfeiture, continuing the trend in earlier cases that appear to depart from the statute. In this article we examine the juridical treatment of entitlements in private law. We identify factors influencing the courts’ enforcement of private arrangements which may circumvent the statutory intent. Our analysis will guide legislators in the design of provisions to implement new schemes.

Second-best tax policy in a growing economy with externalities

This paper investigates the exploitation of environmental resources in a growing economy within a second-best scal policy framework. Agents derive utility from two types of consumption goods one which relies on an environmental input and one which does not as well as from leisure and from environmental amenity values. Property rights for the environmental resource are potentially incomplete. We connect second best policy to essential components of utility by considering the elasticity of substitution among each of the four utility arguments. The results illustrate potentially important relationships between environmental amentity values and leisure. When amenity values are complementary with leisure, for instance when environmental amenities are used for recreation, taxes on extractive goods generally increase over time. On the other hand, optimal taxes on extractive goods generally decrease over time when leisure and environmental amenity values are substitutes. Unders some parameterizations, complex dynamics leading to nonmonotonic time paths for the state variables can emerge.

Options to renew leases: time for legislative relief?

Argues that England should follow the example of Australia and New Zealand and give the courts statutory power to grant a tenant relief against forfeiture of the right to exercise an option to renew a lease by reason of the tenant being in breach of covenant. Suggests the legislative provision introducing this power should adopt wording mirroring that in the Law of Property Act 1925 s.146(2).

Explaining deviations from NAV in UK property companies: rationality and sentimentality

One of the most vexing issues for analysts and managers of property companies across Europe has been the existence and persistence of deviations of Net Asset Values of property companies from their market capitalisation. The issue has clear links to similar discounts and premiums in closed-end funds. The closed end fund puzzle is regarded as an important unsolved problem in financial economics undermining theories of market efficiency and the Law of One Price. Consequently, it has generated a huge body of research. Although it can be tempting to focus on the particular inefficiencies of real estate markets in attempting to explain deviations from NAV, the closed end fund discount puzzle indicates that divergences between underlying asset values and market capitalisation are not a ‘pure’ real estate phenomenon. When examining potential explanations, two recurring factors stand out in the closed end fund literature as often undermining the economic rationale for a discount – the existence of premiums and cross-sectional and periodic fluctuations in the level of discount/premium. These need to be borne in mind when considering potential explanations for real estate markets. There are two approaches to investigating the discount to net asset value in closed-end funds: the ‘rational’ approach and the ‘noise trader’ or ‘sentiment’ approach. The ‘rational’ approach hypothesizes the discount to net asset value as being the result of company specific factors relating to such factors as management quality, tax liability and the type of stocks held by the fund. Despite the intuitive appeal of the ‘rational’ approach to closed-end fund discounts the studies have not successfully explained the variance in closed-end fund discounts or why the discount to net asset value in closed-end funds varies so much over time. The variation over time in the average sector discount is not only a feature of closed-end funds but also property companies. This paper analyses changes in the deviations from NAV for UK property companies between 2000 and 2003. The paper present a new way to study the phenomenon ‘cleaning’ the gearing effect by introducing a new way of calculating the discount itself. We call it “ungeared discount”. It is calculated by assuming that a firm issues new equity to repurchase outstanding debt without any variation on asset side. In this way discount does not depend on an accounting effect and the analysis should better explain the effect of other independent variables.

Who owned Earls Colne in 1798....or how to squeeze more from the Land Tax

In this important article Richard Hoyle, one of the country’s leading historians of the early modern period, introduces new perspectives on the Land Tax and its use in the analysis of local communities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He uses as his case study the parish of Earls Colne in Essex, on which he has already written extensively with Professor Henry French. The article begins with an overview of the tax itself, explaining its history and the procedures for the collection of revenues – including the numerous changes which took place. The sizeable problems confronting any would-be analyst of the data are clearly identified, and Hoyle observes that because of these apparently insoluble difficulties the potential of the tax returns has never been fully realised. He then considers the surviving documentation in The National Archives, providing an accessible introduction to the sources and their arrangement, and describing the particularly important question o f the redemption of the tax by payment of a lump sum. The extent of redemption (in the years around 1800-1804) is discussed. Hoyle draws attention to the potential for linking the tax returns themselves with the redemption certificates (which have never been subjected to historical analysis and thereby proposes new ways of exploiting the evidence of the taxation as a whole. The article then discusses in detail the specific case of Earls Colne, with tabulated data showing the research potential. Topics analysed include the ownership of property ranked by size of payment, and calculations whereby the amount paid may be used to determine the worth of land and the structure of individual estates. The important question of absentee owners is investigated, and there is a very valuable consideration of the potential for looking at portfolio estate ownership, whereby owners held land in varying proportions in a number of parishes. It is suggested that such studies will allow us to be more aware of the entirety of property ownership, which a focus on a single community does not permit. In the concluding paragraph it is argued that using these sources we may see the rise and fall of estates, gain new information on landownership, landholding and farm size, and even approach the challenging topic of the distribution of wealth.