A Tale of Two Taxes: Clean Energy Act 2011 (Cth) V Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (Cth)

This paper investigates what is considered to be carbon tax legislation and defines a carbon tax. It examines the Australian Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (Cth) (REE Act) and concludes that the REE Act is a form of carbon tax. The tax is levied by way of a renewable energy certificates (RECs) system wherein RECs are created by the operators of renewable energy generation installations and sold to the suppliers of fossil fuelled generated electricity. The RECs are used as tokens to pay Australia’s carbon tax. The tax system acts to support the burgeoning renewable energy industry in Australi

The AIFS evaluation of the 2006 family law reforms : a summary

In 2006, the Australian Government, through the Attorney- General\u27s Department (AGD) and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), commissioned the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) to undertake an evaluation of the impact of the 2006 changes to the family law system: Evaluation of the 2006 Family Law Reforms (Kaspiew et al., 2009) (the Evaluation). This article provides a summary of the key findings of the Evaluation.<br /

Family violence : key findings from the evaluation of the 2006 family law reforms

The different types, prevalence and consequences of family violence, as demonstrated by the Australian Institute of Family Studies\u27 Evaluation of the 2006 Family Law Reforms, are discussed. Family violence is shown to be an extremely complex phenomenon, which affects the mental and social well-being of the children. Hence, different measures that can be adopted to deal with pre- and post-separation periods and child care problems are also analyzed.<br /

Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance and Tax Planning in Australia: The participation in mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the 1990s

This paper will examine the development of mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes in Australia. It will consider changes in approach to tax avoidance from the ‘bottom of the harbour’ schemes of the 1960s and 1970s to the mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes of the 1990s. It will examine the changing structure of tax avoidance from individually crafted tax avoidance structures designed by accountants and lawyers used by high wealth individuals to mass produced structures targeted at highly paid, and therefore highly taxed, blue collar workers in Australia’s mining industry in the 1990s. In the latter half of the twentieth century ‘unacceptable’ tax planning went from highly expensive, individually ‘tailor made’ structures afforded and used only by the very wealthy, to inexpensive replicated structures marketed to skilled and unskilled tradespeople and labourers. By 1998 over 42 000 Australian taxpayers were engaged in tax avoidance schemes with the highest proportion focussed in the mining regions of Western Australia. In the remote and inhospitable mining community of Pannawonica, which has one of the highest paid workforces in Australia, the Australian Taxation Office identified that as many as one in five taxpayers were engaged in a mass-marketed tax avoidance scheme. The paper will identify the causes of these changes, including the advent of the computerised information technology which permitted ‘mass production’ of business structures designed to exploit business incentives in the Australian taxation system in the 1990s. It will also set these developments within the broader context of the tax compliance culture prevailing in Australia and overseas during this period

Miners' motivation : the mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes of the 1990s in the Pilbara region of Western Australia

This thesis explores the taxpayer compliance behaviour of blue-collar workers, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, in the 1990s. Statistics reveal that those taxpayers participated in the mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes of the period at significantly higher rates than any other group of Australian taxpayers. This thesis investigates the motivational factors which might have caused that phenomenon. The study adopts a pragmatic research framework, and applies a mixed methods research approach to arrive at its findings. To provide appropriate background and context, the thesis outlines an ethnography which considers the physical, economic and social environments of the Pilbara region. The ethnography highlights the extremely harsh physical and social environments in which the workers associated with the mining industry of the Pilbara region live and work. The thesis then examines the history of tax avoidance schemes in Australia from the early 1970s to the late 1990s to illustrate the development of the mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes. It also undertakes a review of the existing literature to identify factors considered to be relevant to an explanation of the disproportionate engagement of the Pilbara miners in tax avoidance activity.The thesis reviews available statistics in order to reveal dominant motivational factors present in the taxpayer population of the Pilbara region in that period. That examination is then used to frame a series of semi-structured interviews with a group of blue-collar workers of the Pilbara region and other taxpayers to add qualitative flesh to the quantitative bones of the research.This thesis concludes that the primary motivating factors may have been the combination of the physically harsh living environment and the heavy working conditions, further influenced by the high personal income tax rates experienced by the blue-collar workers in the Pilbara. The thesis contributes to the literature in this area by studying a class of taxpayer previously unidentified as being actively engaged in tax avoidance activity, and by seeking to explain their behaviour. It also makes a number of suggestions for areas of further research, such as analyses of the impact of fly-in-fly-out work practices, and of occupational influences on tax compliance behaviour