From the Foreword by John Gilmour:
Thank heavens for Nick Renton.
It has been my view that many years ago Nick Renton made a pact. It was not with some philosophy or religion, not with some political movement or any of the tribes or sporting clubs that make up our community. Nick chose logic. All his life, as a student, as a professional and in later years as a senior commentator on the events of our time, Nick has held firm to that pact with logic.
As a result, all Nick's writings are exquisitely rational.
He analyses the subject, explains what has happened and then suggests courses of action that would be reasonable, sensible and - yes - logical.
This book is another exercise in clear thinking about a subject which is far from clear or rational.
As Nick explains, the taxation systems which govern our lives in Australia are confused, ad hoc, irrational and expensive. They fail to provide what the community wants from tax, they alienate many citizens, they create a vast industry devoted to manipulating and serving the systems, and they have reached a level of complexity that few Australians can understand.
Typically, in his delightfully understated way, Nick notes that the new "simplified" personal income tax form introduced by the Federal Government may be only 12 pages in length but requires an explanatory booklet 204 pages long. The laws and regulations governing taxes for companies take up whole shelves of library space.
The great strength of this book is its documentation of the idiocy of the present system. Nick's proposals for an alternative system are not likely to prevail in the short term, particularly given the enormous vested interests in bureaucracies, in law and in the accounting profession.
But he has produced a wonderful, logical commonsense analysis of the system which the vast majority of Australians may hope will trigger more debate about it, what is wrong and what should be done. Though he suggests in his text that his recommendations may be controversial, his coolly argued submissions for change are almost unassailable.
