Tax reviews are not a new phenomenon in Australia. Since 1950, in addition to several reviews by Parliamentary committees and government — appointed officials or bodies, including the Australian National Audit Office, the Inspector-General of Taxation, and the Board of Taxation, tax has been...

As in all jurisdictions, discretion by authorities plays a role in the administration of tax law in Hungary. The legacy of a socialist past and different national legislative approaches have made this exercise of discretion somewhat different from that in other market economies, however. The tax...

For almost three decades, the Australian Treasury has issued an annual ‘tax expenditure statement' detailing concessions in Australia's tax laws. It was originally argued that tax expenditure budgets (the international term for these statements) would lead to simpler laws with fewer and better...

To date, the focus of most literature on VAT and financial supplies has been on the appropriate treatment of the cost of financial intermediary services related to investments and business loans. This paper broadens the inquiry to a wide range of financial services including consumer loans,...

Expenditures incurred to protect a taxpayer's title or interest in an asset may generate a benefit that lasts momentarily or for a longer time. This raises a conceptual question of whether the expense should be deductible when incurred or captialized and recognized over a longer period....

Article 13 of the OECD Model tax treaty allows a source country to retain taxing rights on capital gains realized by non-residents on the sale of real (immovable) property in the source country. Recently, it has been modified to incorporate a further rule that has long been a feature of the UN...

This paper reviews the income tax model included in the Basic World Tax Code (BWTC) in light of the risk of U.S. tax parochialism by designers. It considers the model in light of specific issues in respect of the measures dealing with income, deductions, the tax unit, company and shareholder...

This paper looks at the sources for VAT design in Africa. It begins with a brief comparison of the two alternative designs used for taxes on final consumption, the retail sales tax and the value added tax. While the VAT has emerged as the consumption tax of choice outside North America, both...

Looking back on the evolution of taxation reform in developed economies over the post-war period, we observe that the early decades were marked by a determined effort to implement reforms based on Haig-Simons principles of a comprehensive income taxation. Under this approach all the various...

No metaphor is dearer to the hearts of Australian tax scholars and practitioners than the fruit and tree depiction of income and capital. An important characterisation in early economic theory, the agricultural allegory was imported into Australian income tax law not long after the adoption of...