Taxation
Taxation is an important part of economic policy – not only in raising revenue for governments to spend, but also in influencing private saving, investment and spending decisions, and for affecting the distribution of income and wealth. Decisions as to what is (or isn’t taxed), and at what rate, are always controversial, and sometimes have unintended consequences.
ATO’s Latest Taxation Statistics – June 2024
News, Recent Media Interview, Taxation | 20th June 2024Saul Eslake spoke with ABC Radio Hobart’s ‘Breakfast’ presenter Ryk Goddard about some of the findings from the ATO’s latest “Taxation Statistics” publication, including the number of taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million, the number with incomes of less than $45,000, and the number who are negatively-geared property investors.
Productivity, Tax Reform and ‘Peak China’
Asian Economies, Economic Policies, Productivity, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 13th March 2024Talk to a gathering of parliamentarians, business leaders and others from the UK and Australia, in Melbourne, on Wednesday 13th March 2024 PRODUCTIVITY, TAX REFORM & ‘PEAK CHINA’ TALK TO COOK SOCIETY, 13th MARCH 2024 by Saul Eslake Principal, Corinna Economic Advisory Download PDF version Productivity Productivity – what we get by way of […]
Danielle Wood must help undo GST deal
News, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 30th November 2023The Australian Financial Review has published an op-ed from me on the changes to the arrangements for distributing the revenue from the GST among the states and territories imposed by the Morrison Government in 2018 (with the support of the then Labor Opposition) – something which I regard as one of the worst public policy […]
Danielle Wood, the Productivity Commission and the horizontal fiscal equalization (HFE)
Economic Policies, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 13th November 2023The changes to the way in which revenues from the GST are carved up among the states and territories imposed by the Morrison Government in 2019 (with the support of the then Labor Opposition) represent, IMHO, one of the worst pieces of public policy-making in Australia in at least 25 years. Among many other flaws, […]
Will reductions in land tax make any difference to rents?
Tasmania, Taxation | 2nd March 2022The Tasmanian Government’s announcement, in the first week of March 2022, of forthcoming changes to the land tax scale have prompted a raft of commentary, much of it not very well informed, on the effects of land tax and the likely impact of the changes proposed by the Government on rents. This note explains why […]
The costs and consequences of ‘small business fetishism’
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, Publications, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 10th December 2021Article published in the December 2021 edition of Agenda, the journal of the Australian National University’s School of Economics.
The ‘corrupt bargain’ underpinning WA’s budget surpluses
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, Taxation | 16th September 2021Article published in the Australian Financial Review on 16th September 2021, examining the way in which Western Australia’s budget surpluses are being bolstered at the expense of the rest of Australia by the ‘corrupt bargain’ over shares of revenue from the GST imposed by the Morrison Government three years ago
Reflections on the 2021 Intergenerational Report
Economic Policies, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 15th August 2021The 2021 IGR, released some six weeks ago, suggests that Australia will be running budget deficits for the next 40 years. But that’s only because of the quite arbitrary assumption that tax collections will remain ‘capped’ at 23.9% of GDP, forever more. There’s no reason why that should be the case.