The Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a research study examining the administrative and compliance costs associated with Commonwealth programs directed at medical general practice. The study was commissioned in July 2002. The Commission was asked to report on the nature...

This chapter considers key aspects of that literature. It starts (in Section 2) by explaining what is usually meant by the term “operating costs” and discussing some of the conceptual issues that arise. It then reviews (in Section 3) the research that has taken place on this topic, including...

As is broadly recognized, the straightforward application of the Diamond-Mirrlees (1971) production efficiency theorem implies that when lump-sum taxation is not available, then it is optimal for the government in a small open economy to rely on taxes on the net demand of households rather than...

In cooperative compliance programs, firms and tax administrations agree on cooperation instead of confrontation. Firms provide full transparency and advanced tax control frameworks. Tax administrations, in turn, offer certainty as to the tax treatment of complex transactions. In this study, we...