The media as usual has offered its deep insights into tax. The Sydney Morning Herald put forward, uncritically, the comment that some people were saying that the GST has not kept pace with the economy. This would have to rank as one of the least logical remarks about taxation to emerge. Obviously the GST keeps perfect pace with the economy, as prices increase, it automatically increases in exact proportions.

Ranking as a close second was the proposal that the GST be increased so that other State taxes could be abolished. It may be recalled that that was one of the reasons put forward for having a GST in the first place, but still, those taxes were not abolished. This is a bit reminiscent of the book "1984" where the newspapers were always reporting that production levels were increasing, when in fact, the data showed that they were falling.

Should anyone trust Treasury estimates? Somebody claimed once that a Treasury estimate was given for Capital Gains Tax when it was introduced by Keating. It was claimed that the estimate was that CGT would be unlikely to exceed at best, $25 million per year. If anyone believed that, I suppose you could get them to believe just about anything.