In both his 2013 and 2014 annual reports the Australian Inspector-General of Taxation wrote of the need to consider the adoption of a taxpayers' bill of rights in Australia. Whilst a charter of taxpayer rights has been a feature of ATO administration for almost two decades it does not provide a...

As part of its response to climate change the 1997 Kyoto Protocol envisages the employment of emissions trading schemes (“ETS”) to provide a market based incentive to reduce emissions and to engage in carbon sequestration activities. Such schemes would also serve to encourage the creation of...

As part of its response to climate change the 1997 Kyoto Protocol envisages a global scheme with national emissions trading schemes (“ETS”) linked to form an international market for carbon. In 2010 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (“TMG”) established an ETS. This regime has some unique...

Global initiatives to reduce emissions can be categorised as either regulatory measures or measures that seek to place a price on carbon. Most jurisdictions employ a combination of the two with pricing measures generally preferred by economists. Where carbon is priced this is typically achieved...

In 2005 the EU’s ETS became the first mandatory scheme to be implemented. The 2012 Australian ETS was based on the EU precedent and the plan, before the Australian ETS was repealed, had been to link the two regimes. The EU scheme suffered a serious setback early on when the market price for EU...