Research Search

Resource type

118 results found

Buildings and greenery
Is China at Risk?
Global Public Law Seminar Series tile image
Stage 3 Tax Cuts Slide
  • News item

The Fiscal and Fairness Implications of the Stage 3 Income Tax Cuts: Concerns from the Community and Welfare Sector

On 18 April 2023, The Tax Law and Policy Research Program of the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute hosted a hybrid seminar on the fiscal and fairness implications of the Stage 3 income tax cuts.The Stage 3 tax cuts were legislated in 2019 with bipartisan support and are due to commence on 1 July 2024. The cuts involve a significant flattening of the progressive personal income tax and are estimated to amount to approximately AUD 184 billion in revenue foregone over the first 8 years of their operation. Distributional analysis suggests that the benefits of the cuts primarily accrue to high wealth and income taxpayers.The public seminar discussed the fiscal and fairness implications of the tax cuts and queried whether their retention can be justified. The seminar featured legal, economic and political analysis of the tax cuts from experts across the University of Melbourne and feature an address by Cassandra Goldie (CEO, ACOSS) discussing the concerns of the community and welfare sector.The seminar was the first in a series of events organised by the Community Tax Project - an alliance between the academic and community and welfare sectors to advocate on tax policy and reform to better achieve social and economic justice. The project is supported by the Tax Law and Policy research program at the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law and with funding provided by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and the Australian Research Council (DE190100346).

Polling Station
  • News item

Taking Electoral Integrity Forward

Jointly held by the WA and ACT chapters of the ERRN, the idea for this webinar was prompted by the introduction by Kate Chaney MP of a Private Member’s Bill entitled Electoral Legislation Amendment (Restoring Trust) Bill 2023. The Bill is quite unusual in that it deals with a wide range of issues relating to the electoral process including limits on government-funded “political” advertising in the runup to a federal election. It contains much that is thought-provoking. A number of the issues go beyond what have typically been seen as within the ambit of electoral regulation; for example, it proposes limits on government-funded “political” advertising in the runup to a federal election.The webinar will cover the following topics:truth in advertising;bans on donations from government contractors;limiting government advertising before elections;removing parties’ exemptions from the Privacy Act;the distribution of postal voting applications, andthe role of political staffers.PresentersKate Chaney MP is Western Australia’s first female Independent Member of the House of Representatives. She represents the federal electorate of Curtin.Mr Phil Green, former Electoral Commissioner for the ACT.  Phillip served as the ACT Electoral Commissioner from 1994 to 2017. Phil was instrumental in the drafting and development of the ACT’s electoral legislation throughout this period.Chair: Mr Michael Maley, former Director of International Services at the Australian Electoral Commission. Michael had a thirty-year career at the AEC, retiring in 2012 as Special Adviser, Electoral Reform and International Services.

The potential of s100A ITAA36 to address tax avoidance using trusts
  • News item

The potential of s100A ITAA36 to address tax avoidance using trusts

On 17 August 2023, Sonali Walpola, Senior Lecturer in the College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University, presented a hybrid seminar on the potential of s100A ITAA36 to address tax avoidance using trusts and why the Full Federal Court’s approach in Guardian should be treated with caution.Seminar abstractSection 100A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA36), enacted in 1979, is an important integrity measure in the trusts arena.The provision applies where a beneficiary is made presently entitled to trust income where the economic benefits relating to the present entitlement are enjoyed by another party. Currently, Section 100A ITAA36 is in the spotlight. The Commissioner relied on s100A in two cases which were the subject of Federal Court appeals in 2023—Commissioner of Taxation v Guardian AIT Pty Ltd [2023] FCAFC 3 (Guardian), where the Commissioner was unsuccessful (at least on s100A) and the ‘BBlood’ litigation (B&F Investments (as trustee for the Illuka Park Trust) v Commissioner of Taxation [2023] FCAFC 89), where the Commissioner was successful. It is centrally argued that the Full Court’s approach to s100A in Guardian is overly narrow, and the decision should be treated with caution due to its failure to consider the most authoritative and salient s100A precedents. While the general anti-avoidance rule in Part IVA ITAA36 was successfully used in Guardian, prior case law shows that s100A is the more robust anti-avoidance mechanism in the trusts arena because it is not hindered by problems that have beset Part IVA, including establishing a dominant tax avoidant purpose. This paper highlights that a broad, non-technical approach to s100A was authoritatively laid down in the only High Court decision on s100A, Raftland Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [2008] HCA 21 (Raftland), but extraordinarily, the Full Court in Guardian does not once discuss or cite Raftland.