The senseless war : the sentencing drug offenses arms race

There has been a considerable increase in the penalties for drug trafficking following the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, over fifty years ago. In many parts of the world, the sanctions are as severe as those for homicide and rape. This penalty escalation is at odds with the counter movement to decriminalise illicit drugs. Drug supplying is the only serious crime where there are widespread moves to decriminalize the main outcome of the crime – the use illicit drugs. This paper explores this paradox. It also examines the rationales for the increasingly harsh penalties for drug suppliers. We conclude that while there is no conclusive argument in favour of the decriminalizing drugs, the weight of empirical data does not establish any concrete benefits stemming from severe penalties for serious drug offenses. In particular, there is no correlation between longer prison terms for drug offenders and a reduction in the availability and use of drugs. We propose that the penalties for drug offenses should be reduced considerably. There is no useful objective that can be achieved by a twenty-five-year term of imprisonment that cannot be achieved by a term of five to ten years. A more measured sentencing response to serious drug offense penalties would make sentencing fairer and enable billions of dollars currently directed to imprisonment to be spent on more pressing community needs

Taxation as a social engineering tool

This study provides policy makers with a legitimately supported basis upon which they can implement taxation to address socially harmful human activities in society. It does so through its novel three ‘Pillared’ approach, Ethics, Law and Economics, with a focus on addressing the causes of Human Induced Climate Change and Obesity

Intellectual property, business in China: taking a stand

Over the last 40 years, China has developed laws for the protection of intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, these laws have not been uniformly enforced, making such protection problematic for Australian and other foreign organisations wishing to do business in China. This article first scrutinises the current Chinese laws covering intellectual property protection. It then examines the outcomes of a qualitative study that addressed intellectual property protection issues faced by selected Australian organisations conducting business with Chinese counterparts located in China. Forty Australian business managers/owners from Australian companies having business relationships with Chinese firms were interviewed for this study. The findings show that protection issues are only relevant to certain types of businesses that have intellectual property to protect. Nevertheless, a number of the managers/owners interviewed believed that infringement threats were real and inevitable in China, and some had even experienced cases of copying. The study found that, despite such concerns, there was little evidence of organisations taking proactive and positive steps to adequately protect their intellectual property. In order to address this, the authors of this article have developed a protection strategy that incorporates the use of the law, together with firms’ organisational designs, so that foreign firms can protect their rights when interacting with the Chinese market

Self-education expenses: some thoughts for taxpayers and their advisers

Copyright © 2014 LexisNexis. This article is made available per the publisher's Content Sharing policy.With the advent of another tax year, the nature and form of self-education expenses come to mind. The income tax return for individuals makes a perceived distinction between forms of education for tax purposes but it may not be that clear for taxpayers and their advisers. Item D4 of the individual tax return allows for taxpayers to make a claim for work related self-education expenses that relate to formal qualifications from a school, college or university. The individual tax return implies that there is a distinction between formal self-education and informal self-education. However when one looks at the relevant Australian Tax Office (ATO) material, this distinction could easily be overlooked

The irrelevance to sentencing of (most) incidental hardships suffered by offenders

Criminal offenders often experience hardships beyond the imposition of a court-imposed sanction. These hardships typically take a variety of forms, but can be grouped into a number of relatively well-established categories, including loss of employment, public opprobrium and injuries sustained during or around the time of the commission of the crime. Other examples are deportation from Australia and the imposition of traditional forms of punishment.1 Collectively, these harms are termed incidental hardships or extra-curial punishment.2 Formally, extra-curial punishment is defined as a ‘loss or detriment imposed on an offender by persons other than the sentencing court, for the purpose of punishing the offender for his [or her] offence or at least by reason of the offender having committed the offence’

Allowable deductions, cost base of CGT assets and the GAAR: a minefield for taxpayers and their advisers

Copyright © 2014 LexisNexis. This article is made available per the publisher's Content Sharing policy.Taxpayers and their advisers have, for decades, struggled to reconcile outgoings that can be considered as allowable deductions under s 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) (ITAA 97), with those outgoings which may be included in the cost base of a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) asset.1 In this article we briefly examine Hart’s case2 and the subsequent Taxation Determination TD 2005/33 issued by the Australian Tax Office (ATO). This Tax Determination sets out the Commissioner’s view regarding the inclusion (or non-inclusion) of non-capital costs of ownership of a CGT asset in its cost base where such outgoings had been previously denied deductibility under the general deduction provisions3 of the ITAA 97 by virtue of the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) under Pt IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) (ITAA 36)

Supporting Taxation’s extended ‘Purpose’ to encompass the Objective of Socially Engineering Human Behaviours

Taxation should not only be viewed as a legislative tool which provides revenues for policymakers to be able to then deliver social goods and services such as roads, health care, education and military protections. The fiscal raising aspect of taxation is also supplemented by another objective or purpose – the social engineering of human behaviours. This extended purpose of taxation can be supported by reference to three Pillars: Ethics, Law and Economics as bought together in this Article. This three Pillar approach can provide the basis for taxpayer confidence and acceptance of a policymaker’s approach to extending the purpose of taxation to encompass objectives of socially engineering human behaviours. This is especially important where the positives of such a policy approach outweigh the harms associated with certain defined human behaviours, for the individual and for broader society

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