An outsider view offers important proposals to help Australia navigate stormy economic weather

Few of the International Monetary Fund’s annual reports on Australia have created any ripples in the national debate. This time is different. In two reports released last week, IMF staff weighed in boldly on everything from house prices to tax reform and our obsession with public debt – and their advice is quite unexpected.

The two reports could roughly be described as focusing on macro and micro issues respectively. The second is the more interesting one, dealing with house prices, productivity and tax reform – on which the IMF presents its own fearless blueprint, which includes scrapping negative gearing, cutting superannuation tax breaks, and raising the GST and widening its scope to include all consumer spending…

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