2020 Australian of the Year James Muecke has called for a tax on sugary drinks – and the evidence is behind him.
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Myths that taxes on sugary drinks unfairly disadvantage the poor and will result in job losses don’t hold up. Here’s what the evidence says.
A convenience store worker hands out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
Which candies count as candy in the eyes of the tax law? The answer often depends on one ingredient.
The Getty Fire burns next to the 405 freeway in the hills of West Los Angeles.
Reuters/Gene Blevins
Some Californians want to ban people from living in wildfire-prone areas. Behavioral economics offers a less heavy-handed approach to reducing the costs and risks.
Five new things in the 2020 state budget that will impact Indonesian citizens and taxpayers.
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Indonesia’s state budget (APBN) for 2020 was signed into law without any meaningful resistance. It allocates US$180 billion for the next fiscal year.
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Governments around the world lose about US$125 billion in revenues every year because of profit shifting to tax havens.
The new law aims to deregulate existing tax requirements to create a more open business climate.
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If the draft tax law is approved by the Indonesian parliament, individuals and businesses will be affected by at least six important changes.
French president, Emmanuel Macron has set his sights on tackling inequality.
EPA-EFE / Pascal Rossignol
A fundamental driver of inequality is the race to the bottom in how governments set their corporate tax rates.
Every state bears the burden of the opioid crisis.
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State governments are leading the charge against opioid makers over their role in the epidemic. A team of researchers at Penn State examined just how much the crisis has cost them.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt with Prime Minister Scott Morrison after the Coalition swearing in at Government House in Canberra.
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Geoff Crisp speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in politics.
Our experts take a closer look at what’s in store for the country in five key policy areas: health, tax, education, infrastructure and the environment.
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Now that the Coalition has won the federal election, how will it meet its campaign promises on taxes, the environment, education, health and infrastructure?
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Goodstart Early Learning Centre director Suzan Baljevic read to children at Ryde in Sydney, February 1.
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Labor’s childcare policy would do more for the economy than either side’s proposed tax cuts.
Johannesburg’s economic hub, Sandton, lies right next to the sprawling and extremely poor Alexandra township.
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Wealth inequality in South Africa is not only intolerably high, its also not reducing.
The Grattan Institute’s Commonwealth Orange Book 2019 serves as a guide for what the next government should do, and what it should not try to do.
Grattan Institute
The next government can make its own luck, but it needs to focus on what matters and ignore the rest.
To start with each side offers a “lamington” (Low and Middle Income Tax offset), then the differences get serious.
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After some years the Coalition’s proposals would cost $40 billion per year more than Labor’s, but by then Labor will have probably cut tax further too.
The Coalition has produced tables showing it would be offering bigger tax cuts in 2024.
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The government has set out the tax benefit people in particular occupations would get in the long term under its plan, while Labor has announced funding for pathology from its cancer package.
Congress designed a complicated tax system.
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The IRS already has all the info it needs from 40% of filers, yet lobbying by tax preparers is stymieing efforts to make the filing process simpler.
Taxing harmful behaviour like smoking and gambling have become too lucrative for governments to turn away from.
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Governments are addicted to tax revenue from harmful activities. It is stopping them from doing what is in society’s best interests.
Forget the low hanging fruit, for the Coalition tax reform might have well been forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden.
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Six years of Coalition government has had little impact on the tax system. It’s not clear whether a Labor government would be any different.
Much of what’s been promised would have had to happen anyway.
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The promised tax cuts will benefit high earners in 2022 and 2024, but by then they’ll need it.
On tax, Shorten one-upped the Liberals, offering bigger immediate tax cuts to 3.6 million taxpayers who earn under $48,000.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The opposition aims to put Medicare at the forefront of its campaigning, as it did in 2016. But there is a notable difference.