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Ken Henry at the Tax Forum: talkfest or useful? AAP

Missed anything from the Tax Forum? Catch up here…

So the Tax Forum is done and dusted. Was it simply a talk-fest? Or a useful exchange of ideas? We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, if you missed anything, don’t despair: we’ve collected some of…
Income inequality is a big issue for Australia, but tax reform offers many solutions. AAP

Tax Forum: overcoming private affluence and public squalor

What can we expect from the Tax Forum at Parliament House today and tomorrow? We may anticipate consensus that the tax system should be efficient, fair, understandable and effective in raising the revenue…
Carers lose out in the current welfare system. Flickr/dominikgolenia

Tax Forum: Make the social security system fair

Almost 50 cents of every dollar spent by governments in Australia goes on social spending - either social security or health and community services. This week’s tax forum must reform the system, as the…
fenceneoliminal. Flickr/Neoliminal

Housing and tax: why is reform so hard?

There will be a myriad of issues debated at this week’s Tax Forum but top of the wishlist for many experts is reforming housing taxation. Housing makes up the lion’s share of household wealth in Australia…
The Tax Forum must ensure we have a sure-footed approach to reform. AAP

Tax Forum: Critical reform is worth the effort – and the wait

Periodic tax reform is necessary as governments respond to new patterns and forms of economic activity and the inevitable political pressures these changes create. Yet the politics of tax reform is politically…
Subsidies for nannies could help retain skilled women in the workforce, but isn’t without pitfalls. AAP

Tax Forum: should nannies for high income women be subsidised?

Some very well-paid women want to use the Tax Forum to press the government to substantially subsidise the costs of nannies by allowing their costs to be tax deductible. They claim this is essential to…
Increasingly, the impossible dream? Government policy has contributed to a lack of affordable housing. AAP

Tax Forum: reforming how property is taxed means we’ll tackle affordability

The Federal government’s Tax Forum offers a unique opportunity to begin remedying some of the inefficiencies and inequities we are witnessing in our housing system. Housing in Australia has become an unaffordable…
The local government sector could serve as a valuable model for taxation reform. Flickr/David Jackmanson

Tax Forum: the overlooked role of local government in tax reform

There is a contradiction at the heart of tax reform. Timid governments, worried about a voter backlash, do too little, too late. Yet in the medium to long term, major structural changes in the economy…
A GST exemption on basic food was a political argument, not economic, and should be reviewed. AAP

Tax Forum: the GST exemption should come off food

It is a shame that the GST is off the menu at October’s Tax Forum, because one of its central tenets – the exemption of basic food and beverages – deserves to be debated again. The exemption is basically…
Is it time to reform the GST? AAP

Tax forum: GST needs changing, so let’s debate it

While changes to the GST are not an explicit item on the Tax Forum agenda, they should be and the issue will arise anyway. A broad and comprehensive GST tax base along the lines of the New Zealand model…

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