My late mother in law was the classic elderly motorist paying far more than she should in government taxes for owning a vehicle.
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In 2003 she bought a Nissan sedan but hardly used it, so that when she departed this life a few years ago the odometer was still showing 35,000km.
Mechanics would queue up to buy it because the motor was hardly run in.
The car hummed along quietly like a church mouse.
But she was still paying around $500 a year in government charges, before she put a drop of juice in the tank.
Decades ago former deputy premier Neil Batt proposed a fuel levy on vehicles, on the basis of user pays.
The levy would replace existing fixed charges like registration, motor tax, drivers licenses and MAIB compulsory third party insurance.
Yes there is a Federal fuel excise, but it too is based on user pays, instead of fixed costs regardless of usage.
Why should my late mother in law pay for fixed charges, when she hardly used her vehicle, but alongside commercial vehicles, and trucks that ripped up the roadside?
Currently fixed vehicle charges rake in more than $240 million a year, the largest component being motor tax that raises $105 million a year and has nothing to do with the motor vehicle industry.
It is purely a tax.
So if I do a simple calculation, based on $7000 a year in fuel costs, and apply this to a 10 per cent levy, and then multiply the result by the number of registered vehicles in the state I get something like $330 million a year in fuel levy revenue.
Now of course not everyone is going to spend $7000 a year on fuel, with my late mother in law in mind.
But it shows that a levy would raise more if not the same as those fixed costs but would be more equitable because it depended on usage.
That's why the GST is such a fair tax because how much you pay in GST depends on your spending preferences.
If you're a crazy shopper or eat out a lot you would pay more GST, but that was your choice.
The GST is not arbitrarily imposed on your lifestyle.
So, naturally I would like to see the GST raised to 15 per cent because governments need more income and this is the fairest way of doing it.
The GST has been at 10 per cent since its inception in 2000.
It needs federal approval along with every state and territory to increase but they would approve of it, if only Canberra had the courage.
There are ways to make taxes fairer.
I would apply land tax to every primary residence valued at more than $3 million, or even more than $2 million.
Land tax is essentially a wealth tax, so I would make it a fair dinkum wealth tax by slugging ridiculously priced properties.
With land tax you have the ludicrous outcome where total land tax collections are forecast to be $195 million in the current financial year, but exemptions total $437 million, including $395 million for exempting primary residences and farms.
That's because some previous government chasing votes signed off on exemptions and concessions, which are more than double the total tax take.
I would abolish payroll tax because it's a tax on jobs, and replace the revenue with a greater GST of 15 per cent or even 20 per cent.
So payroll tax could be abolished in all states and territories.
Finally I would hand over our health system to the Commonwealth just like John Howard took over the Mersey General Hospital in 2007.
We would take a cut in specific purpose payments from Canberra and the GST, but health soaks up a third of the State Budget.
It is a money guzzler we can't afford to run on our own.
Every state battles with health costs, but Tasmania simply lacks the economic firepower to pay for it.
We lack the financial clout of other states.
We are not an economic powerhouse.
We are better at managing a budget, which incidentally draws more than two thirds of its income in grants from Canberra.
And a final word on fixing the structural inequities and odd-ball arrangements of our state finances.
Previous governments have condemned generations of Tasmanians to the dead weight of our superannuation liability.
I know I harp on about this but it is an unfolding tragedy.
It currently costs almost $1 billion every year to cover the annual interest costs and the agency contributions towards the liability.
This is a scandal that even the media seems unable to grasp, let alone average Tasmanians.
How can a state of our size rack up a public sector superannuation debt of more than $8 billion, if you include government businesses, and which is costing taxpayers almost a billion dollars every year to maintain?
