Re: TGV type questions.

["Barry Campbell" <campblbm@ozemail.com.au>]

David Bromage wrote in message <6p480d$r1d$2@news.mel.aone.net.au>...
>Tell (telljb@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>> "Chris Stratton" <stratton.chris.cp@bhp.com.au> wrote:
>> >The VFT proposal a few years back was planning to run
>> >Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne. BHP was part of the consortium and the
project
>> >was eventually cancelled because the government at the time wouldn't
provide
>> >any tax concessions.
>
>> If Governments do not wish to take on projects like
>> this, and they should not, then they MUST provide
>> incentives through the tax system, without that we will
>> go nowhere.
>
>It depends what sort of incentive you mean. The federal, NSW and ACT
>governments now have to each put in $1 million for the project to proceed
>to the next stage. However the winning bid immediately has to pay $3
>million back, so it's neutral in the end. Previous governments were not
>even willing to do this.
>
As I recall the concessions involved the ability of a company set up to be
involved in this sort of risky venture to quarantine the risk within itself
(ie not pass it on to the parent companies) but still be able to pass tax
advantages to the parents. Of course, the flip side of this is that if the
venture was profitable the paret companies would be liable for tax
ultimately on those profits.


Barry Campbell