In 1999 the Ralph Committee recommended sweeping reforms to the Australian income tax system. Its final report, consisted of eight parts and made 280 recommendations. Many of these have since passed into law in a staggered series of stages since 1999. Numerous CGT-related recommendations were...

New Zealand currently charges some classes of capital gains to income tax, but there is no tax on capital gains as such. The Tax Working Group recently established by the government has however recommended that there should be such a tax. That is, it has recommended that New Zealand should, like...

Exempting capital gains from taxation clearly favours large established business at the expense of new and small business, and promotes an increasing concentration of wealth at the expense of low and middle income taxpayers . The business submissions to the Government’s Tax Review 2001 though...

This article reviews the case for taxing capital gains in New Zealand. The analogy is drawn between a taxation system and a medieval toll bridge. The wider the span of the bridge the more traffic can pass in the same time period. This can allow a reduction in the rate of toll, reducing the...

In the latter half of the 1980s the tax climate in Australia and New Zealand changed markedly. While throughout the world there were major tax reforms, the changes in Australasia were more fundamental, and both structural and radical. Major changes that were adopted in one or both of the two...

This article considers the issue of whether or not New Zealand trustees must be recognized as valid parties in New Zealand's treaty network by exploring the various approaches that may be adopted in the interpretation of tax treaties and the diverging constructions of the residence article.New...

This article examines the potential conflict between thin capitalization rules and the OECD Model article on non-discrimination using the New Zealand regime exempli gratia. It is discriminatory to impose a higher tax burden on an enterprise funded with foreign capital. Yet that is the basis for...

This article begins by examining the relationship between thin capitalisation rules and double tax treaties. After examining the potential for a fundamental conflict in this area it looks at the OECD's attempts to resolve the problem (in section 2). In sections 3 and 4, the article examines the...

This paper considers New Zealand's hybrid tax credit system consisting principally of a credit system combined with exemption features in respect of certain classes of income, both of which aim to provide relief to minimise the impact of foreign income being taxed in a foreign jurisdiction as...

From a tax policy point of view, one of the demerits of a foreign investment fund regime is that it causes the law to treat forms of investment that are similar in economic purpose and effect as if they were different. In particular, it I likely to distinguish between direct investments by...