Tax concessions in support of charitable giving: an international comparison

The Australian taxation system encourages charitable giving through tax deductibility for donations made by individuals and companies, and via tax exemption for income distributed to charities through charitable trusts. Other means of giving, such as through bequests enjoy little tax concessions..

Australian tax reform: post-Henry

Background Since the mid-1980s, Australian tax reforms have been aimed mainly at increasing tax neutrality through base broadening and rate reductions. In addition, improved operational efficiency and system integrity were sought through improve ments in tax legislation, administration and compliance. Reform did not bring much change in the broad tax architecture, nor tax revenues relative to GDP, nor systemic progressivity. The earlier rounds related mainly to income tax (including superannuation arrangements) and tax administration. Introduction of the GST in 2000 brought a measure of indirect tax reform. Set against the reform effort is the continuous erosion of the performance of the system. This results from sectional interest-based policy making, the emergence of new or increased avoidance and evasion opportunities, and the ongoing pressures from wider changes in technology, socio-economic patterns and demography. Consequently, to maintain performance assessed against standard axioms, tax systems require continuous, or at least regular, adaptive change. However, the political difficulties associated with policy change have in practice meant that reform has proven a punctuated and unreliable process

Addressivity and Sociability in “Celtic Men”

This paper is part of a larger project which examines the sociable dimensions of computer-mediated communication in local newsgroups on the Internet. This paper, however, takes as its primary data a complete thread of eighty five messages posted to RumCom’s largest ISP specific newsgroup,\ud rumcom.local. The messages share the subject header “Celtic Men” and play off contributors ideas about regional aspects of masculinity and male sexuality. As a whole they provide a good example of both a specific culturally located example of developing communication and a more general example of newsgroup CMC. Using this case as our exemplar we shall hold up for examination three matters: how the technology and software supplied by RumCom influence the form of interaction within the newsgroup; how different types of addressivity are used by posters to manage their communication; and how the notion of sociability figures as a useful device to characterise the specific traits of newsgroup interaction

Fighting the Mujahideen: Lessons from the Soviet Counter-Insurgency Experience if Afghanistan

The Canadian Forces currently in Afghanistan as part of a NATO coalition are playing a major role in a counter-insurgency campaign directed against a resurgent Taliban threat. Dealing with this menace will not be easy as the Taliban, realizing they cannot defeat NATO’s superior military strength, have resorted to asymmetric actions that strike at the coalition’s will through the cumulative effects of terror and small-scale “hit and run” military operations. Although NATO must contend with these tactics, concentrating solely on the military aspects of the problem will not address the real danger. The true nature of the Taliban’s threat rests in its political strength and not in its military capability. In order to destroy the Taliban’s influence in the region a combination of political, social, economic, and military means are necessary. The complexities of dealing with these issues in a coherent manner are significant, but in the case of Afghanistan there is no precedent. Interestingly, the Soviets faced many of these same challenges while fighting a counter-insurgency campaign against the Mujahideen through much of the 1980s.1 The Soviet experience should be of interest to coalition members as it provides a contemporary example of the challenges of conducting counter-insurgency operations within that country. Contrary to popular belief, the Soviets followed a logical and multifaceted, if somewhat brutal, counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. A critical examination of the Soviet performance reveals that many of their failings can be directly attributed to a lack of resources and in this respect, there are a surprising number of similarities between the operational environment the Soviets faced and the situation that now confronts NATO. This paper will explore aspects of Soviet counterinsurgency operations during their occupation of Afghanistan, and assess strengths and weaknesses relevant to current operations in that country.

Reading and proclaiming the birth narratives from Luke and Matthew : a study in empirical theology amongst curates and their training incumbents employing the SIFT method

Drawing on Jungian psychological type theory, the SIFT method of biblical hermeneutics and liturgical preaching suggests that the reading and proclaiming of scripture reflects the psychological type preferences of the reader and preacher. This thesis is examined amongst two samples of curates and training incumbents (N = 23, 27), serving in one Diocese of the Church of England, who completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Firstly, the narrative of the shepherds from Luke was discussed by groups organised according to scores on the perceiving process. In accordance with the theory, sensing types focused on details in the passage, but could reach no consensus on the larger picture, and intuitive types quickly identified an imaginative, integrative theme, but showed little interest in the details. Secondly, the narrative of the massacre of the infants from Matthew was discussed by groups organised according to scores on the judging process. In accordance with theory, the thinking types identified and analysed the big themes raised by the passage (political power, theodicy, obedience), whilst the feeling types placed much more emphasis on the impact that the passage may have on members of the congregation mourning the death of their child or grandchild

The College Admissions Problem Under Uncertainty

We consider a college admissions problem with uncertainty. We realistically assume that (i) students' college application choices are nontrivial because applications are costly, (ii) college rankings of students are noisy and thus uncertain at the time of application, and (iii) matching between colleges and students takes place in a decentralized setting. We analyze a general equilibrium model where two ranked colleges set admissions standards for student quality signals, and students, knowing their types, decide where to apply to. We show that the optimal student application portfolio need not be monotone in types, and we construct a robust example to show that this can lead to a failure of assortative matching in equilibrium. More importantly, we prove that a unique equilibrium with assortive matching exists provided application costs are small and the lower-ranked college has sufficiently high capacity. We also provide equilibrium comparative static results with respect to college capacities and application costs. We apply the model to the question of race-based admissions policiesmatching, directed search, noise

License to drive: young drivers and nighttime curfews in Australia

Young drivers are over represented in nighttime crash statistics. In recent months in Australia, there has been an intense public debate about the necessity for action, and in particular, the desirability of the introduction of nighttime curfews. Existing evidence has linked the introduction of curfews with reductions in crash rates in a number of jurisdictions around the world. In North Carolina for example, the introduction of a nighttime curfew has been linked with a 43 per cent reduction in nighttime crash rates (Foss, Feagnes and Rodgman, 2001). There is strong opposition to curfews from some in community, particularly young people. Many people perceive curfews to be an infringement on their right to travel, and fear that curfews will severely hamper their ability to work, study and socialise. Research in this paper questions whether curfews are necessarily linked with relatively low nighttime crash rates. Multivariate linear regressions were used to examine the involvement of 16 to 19 year old drivers in fatal crashes between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am. The analyses examined crash rates in 40 US states over a three year period, 1999 to 2001. The results of the regressions showed that, controlling for relevant variables including licensure rates and reference crash rates, the presence of a nighttime curfew in a state is associated with lower nighttime crash rates, though this association is not statistically significant. This result applied to all young drivers, as well as young male drivers and young female drivers