From a three-and-a-half year high last month, business confidence data for October shows the post-election honeymoon is over, with business conditions continuing to underperform in non-mining sectors…
Budget night has come and gone again. For those sad folks (I count myself among them) who follow tax and fiscal policy obsessively, it’s the most glamorous night of the year. But the budget does matter…
Yesterday, the government’s business tax working group released its discussion paper on possibilities for tax reform. The paper makes a case for a broader base and lower tax rate (the corporate tax is…
In summing up a business summit in Brisbane on 13 June, the Prime Minister floated her intention to lower the company tax rate - but as part of a business tax revenue neutral package. This intention raises…
As former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry observed, much of the national conversation that took place at the first session on business taxation at the National Tax Forum could have been scripted beforehand…
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…
What is to be done about Australia’s deteriorating productivity performance? It’s by no means inconceivable that the answer to this question could be “nothing”. Historical precedent strongly suggests Australians…
Debates around tax are too often seen as marginal to real life and not very interesting. October’s tax forum offers an opportunity to challenge this misconception and do some hard thinking about what society…