This paper provides a summary overview of the personal income tax–transfer reform debate in Australia. It attempts to employ a balanced approach to examine the,main issues and arguments put forward by various schools of thought with regard to tax reform. First, it explores in depth the meaning...

This paper examines the problems faced by low and middle income earners as,a result of high effective marginal tax rates ('EMTRs'). It is primarily concerned with the negative impact of these high EMTRs on workforce participation. The paper,explores some of the reasons for high EMTRs, caused by...

This article compares and contrasts the Australian Henry Review,with major tax reviews that took place at about the same time in the United Kingdom (the Mirrlees Review) and New Zealand (the Tax,Working Group Review). It suggests that the three countries share many cultural, social, economic and...

Taxes on wealth have never been as popular or widespread as taxes on the other two major tax bases – income and expenditure. Virtually every country around the world uses income taxes and most also use expenditure taxes. These two tax bases account for the vast majority of tax revenue for most...

Existing literature has established the regressive nature of tax compliance costs, and in particular, the compliance costs associated with indirect taxes such as value added taxes (VAT) (known in Australia as Goods and Services Tax (GST)). Costs of compliance impact on the willingness of...

This paper considers issues related to tax, governance and administration through an analysis of aspects of the Chinese, Indonesian and Thai tax systems. It does this in the context of exploring some of the tax challenges and the opportunities that face such rapidly developing countries. The...

Is the South African tax system ‘fit for purpose’? This article addresses this and related questions by considering the fiscal outlook in South Africa in comparison to OECD,,BRIICS and other developing countries. Trends are analysed from the perspectives of tax revenue, tax mix and tax...

This article uses an Indonesian case study (the Gayus case) to explore critical issues in the relationship between tax and corruption. More particularly, it considers the causes and impact of corruption at tax administrative levels in Indonesia, and identifies and evaluates strategies the...

This article presents the findings of a pilot research project designed to evaluate the merits of a prototype diagnostic tool for gauging the nature and likely overall incidence of value added tax (VAT) compliance costs at the country level, and to assess its use in comparative cross-country...

This research project, funded by CPA Australia under the Global Research Perspectives Program, evaluates Standard Business Reporting (SBR) as a measure designed to reduce the tax compliance burden of Australian businesses resulting from reporting obligations imposed by the government. In...