Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos has made a strong pitch for giving priority to a company tax cut in the coming budget as the best way to boost growth, with a significant flow on for workers.
The Commonwealth is telling the states to fix their own hospital budget problems, as though state governments can simply find savings from other areas.
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Jane Hall, University of Technology Sydney and Kees Van Gool, University of Technology Sydney
Health-care costs are rising, driven by expensive developments in treatments, more demanding populations and rising national wealth. We need to change the financing system to meet this challenge.
On Monday, a scarifying account of Tony Abbott’s prime ministership appears in the bookshops. By journalist Niki Savva, The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government…
Malcolm Turnbull tosses the coin ahead of the politicians versus Canberra Press Gallery cricket match on Sunday.
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When you are Malcolm Turnbull floundering in the heavy seas of tax reform, it is perhaps unfortunate that the 20th anniversary of the election of the Howard government has come around at this particular…
Malcolm Turnbull and Kelly O'Dwyer this week made contradictory comments about the effects of implementing Labor’s capital gains tax reforms.
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The Turnbull government desperately needs a circuit breaker. It is in an appalling mess over tax policy and it can’t afford to wait until the budget to have it sorted out.
A key problem with working out the impacts of negative gearing is that we don’t know exactly which properties it affects or the status of their tenants.
AAP/Dan Peled
What if there was a middle option between retention and abolition that made negative gearing work better? There are multiple ways to improve accountability for this $8 billion-a-year tax concession.
The tax deal between the UK government and Google shows governments have a long way to go when sharing the benefits of the knowledge economy.
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The rest of society won’t see the benefits of innovation until governments figure out a way to effectively tax the knowledge economy.
Treasurer Scott Morrison says the changes to foreign investment scrutiny will give the ATO greater powers to crack down on tax avoidance.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Treasurer Scott Morrison has “rescaled” the tax debate to hold out the prospect of “modest” tax relief that may prevent average wage earners moving into the second highest tax bracket.
Labor’s Chris Bowen and Bill Shorten announced plans for new tax rules, and the government, even as it attacked their plan, has also opened the door to changes to negative gearing.
AAP/Gemma Najen
The problem is there are already too many buyers willing to pay high prices, and negative gearing is designed to create more buyers willing to pay more.
ACOSS says over 90% of investment in negatively geared housing stock applies to existing properties.
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The Australian Council of Social Service has called for the tax treatment of private trusts to be tightened, which it says could save $1.5 billion in 2017-18.
We might be ambivalent about taxation because it challenges our sense of ourselves as individuals – and we may not trust governments to spend it properly.
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Many of us are happy for governments to increase spending on public services, but we don’t like the idea of higher taxes. There are some good reasons for this.
While a major tax switch is now not on, Scott Morrison is still heavily focused on the challenge of bracket creep.
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Fairfax-Ipsos’ first poll of 2016 has the government ahead 52-48% on the two-party vote and Malcolm Turnbull leading Bill Shorten 64-19% as preferred prime minister. While the numbers for the Coalition…
Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash worked closely when he was a senator, and he has been a supporter of hers.
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In some circles they call Fiona Nash the “Barnaby whisperer”. It’s said she’s able to calm him down. In electing Nash their new deputy the Nationals have acted wisely.
Treasury modelling released by the government backs up Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to walk away from an increase to the GST.
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