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Royalties are not a tax.
Royalties are the price paid for the minerals (stock in trade) that mining companies dig out of the ground.
Personally, I would prefer an increase in the royalties rate rather than the super profits tax. It would be fairer and much simpler.
How should get the royalties is another question.
Royalties are not a tax? However, it is doubtful whether we can rely solely in OECD definitions to conclude that mining royalty payments do not constitute duties of excise under the Australian interpretation of the term. This is for two reasons: firstly the long established principle by the High Court that a tax on a step of production is a duty of excise; secondly that the structure of mineral royalties taxes most minerals - though not all - at a step of production beyond that of extraction of the resource.
The Henry Tax revue suggested the "royalties" be removed and a flat tax placed on the mining companies. Not this double dipping we have now to plug the blackhole budget of Kruddy & Swanny.