Cash-Strapped governments everywhere are on the hunt for new sources of revenue. Some are casting their net outwards, chasing expatriates and tax refugees. Some are looking upwards, taxing high earners and corporate jet-setters. One or two are even looking backwards. India, for example, has imposed a retroactive tax on some big foreign acquisitions dating back five years or more. Australia is looking, er, down under. On July ist it imposed two new taxes: a mining levy and a carbon tax. Both taxes are controversial, and the manner in which they were introduced was shoddy. And yet, compared with some clumsy revenue-raising elsewhere, Australia's two new taxes bear at least a family resemblance to sound policymaking.
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