A Partial Analysis of the 1999 Ralph Report : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This paper seeks to review the effectiveness of the tax reforms flowing from 1999 Review of Business Taxation's Report (known as the Ralph Report). In doing so, this paper selects three aspects of the enacted Ralph Report reforms, the non-commercial loss (NCL) rules , the simplified tax system (STS) and the capital gains tax (CGT) discount , and evaluates these reforms having regard to the Ralph Report's stated policy objectives and the generally accepted tax policy criteria. This paper seeks to bring to together these papers to review aspects of the Ralph Report. The introduction firstly sets out the paper's aims and then provides the necessary context for the paper by outlining the relevant Ralph Report processes and reforms. Secondly, the tax policy framework is detailed and applied to the NCL, STS and the CGT discount reforms