Better than growth - Australian Conservation Foundation

7 Better taxation
rewarding work, not waste
› We will cut taxes on those things we all want more of such as income, investment
and innovation. And we will shift those taxes to what we all want less of: pollution,
greenhouse gas emissions and waste. … The Green Shift plan will be good for the environment
and good for the economy. Good for the planet and good for your wallet. ‹
stéphane Dion, Leader, Liberal Party of Canada, 2008 56
› All tax systems are interventionist; the question is not whether to intervene but how to
intervene. … A tax system should integrate cost with price. Currently, we dissociate the two.
We know the price of everything but the cost of nothing. Price is what the buyer pays.
Cost is what society pays. ‹ Paul Hawken, 1997 57
In 2006, the Chinese Government resolved to impose a tax on disposable
chopsticks. This initiative may seem trivial, until one realises that the
production of 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks each year requires
70 million cubic feet of timber – a dwindling resource in China.
The chopsticks tax is a classic example of shifting the tax system so
that it encourages efficiency (bring your own re-usable chopsticks!) and
discourages needless resource use.
By taxing throw-away chopsticks, China joins the growing list of
environmental tax reform projects around the world. From congestion
charges in London and Singapore to increased fuel taxes in many European
nations to the comprehensive environmental tax shift proposal underway
in the City of Winnipeg, governments around the world are seeking to align
taxation with environmental goals.
Australian governments raise revenue mostly by taxing productivity,
56. Liberal Party of Canada,
‘The Green Shift‘ (2008),
www.cbc.ca/
newsatsixns/pdf/
liberalgreenplan.pdf
57. Paul Hawken, ‘Natural
Capitalism‘, Mother Jones,
Mar–Apr 1997,
http://motherjones.
com/politics/1997/03/
natural-capitalism
ACF BETTER THAN GROWTH 29