Tag Archives: tax

Post-Budget lunch featuring Michael Knox, Morgans’ Chief Economist

Queensland has already received some good news regarding the upcoming 2016-17 Federal Budget, with the announcement two weeks’ ago that our share of GST revenue will be over $500 million higher in 2016-17 than we previously expected (see my post … Continue reading

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Update on lockout law debate

Rod Bogaards’ recent guest post on the proposed lockout law was quoted by Paul Syvret in the Courier-Mail yesterday in his opinion piece Lockout laws’ knock-on effects need to be weighed. Regarding the proposed law, Syvret noted: The problem is … Continue reading

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Governments find a gentle nudge can get results

Australians should be prepared for more nudges from government agencies encouraging us to do the right thing, similar to recent examples such as letters from the ATO urging us to pay our taxes to support our way of life, and … Continue reading

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Townsville ABC radio interview on GST

The GST debate continues, with much attention focused on the regressive nature of the GST. That is, because poorer households typically consume higher fractions of their incomes than richer households, they pay proportionally more of their incomes in GST. Hence … Continue reading

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Interview on Turnbull Cabinet on 612 ABC Brisbane

Yesterday afternoon, Emma Griffiths from 612 ABC Brisbane interviewed me regarding PM Malcolm Turnbull’s Cabinet and what it means for the economy: The future of business under Turnbull I told Emma that it appears business is very optimistic about the … Continue reading

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Upcoming ESA Qld event on family-based taxation featuring Senator Matt Canavan & Alex Robson

Equity is important for the design of tax systems. Equity involves treating similar people the same (i.e. horizontal equity), but also adjusting taxes to allow for differences in the ability to pay taxes and in the benefits that people receive … Continue reading

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Medicare levy hike would not address major problem of vertical fiscal imbalance

The Daily Telegraph today reports some new modelling on the proposed Medicare levy hike undertaken by my old friend and former Queensland resident Ben Phillips, now Principal Research Fellow at NATSEM: Medicare: Levy hike would cost families $2000 a year … Continue reading

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GST much more efficient way to raise revenue than income tax

Flavio Menezes, Economics Professor at the University of Queensland, has an interesting piece at the Conversation fact checking a bold claim by federal MP Andrew Leigh that the GST is as economically inefficient as the income tax and less equitable … Continue reading

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Lessons from John Howard’s GST reform suggest current tax reform process will most likely fail

At a panel discussion on tax reform in Brisbane last night, there were some important insights for the current taxation debate made by former PM John Howard’s economic adviser Peter Crone, Australian newspaper contributing editor Professor Judith Sloan, and Griffith’s … Continue reading

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ACE 2015 tax policy panel discussion involving Treasury suggests little chance of major tax reform

The official Treasury water bottle. A pleasant surprise in the ACE 2015 conference bag. Thanks to Graeme Davis from Treasury, Alex Robson from Griffith, Miranda Stewart from ANU and Paul Abbey from PwC for some informative and stimulating presentations at … Continue reading

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