How much income tax do we really pay? An analysis of 2011–12 individual income tax data

This paper investigates the extent to which certain deductions and tax offsets in the individual tax system are used by tax payers across different income ranges, and the impact these have on potential tax revenue and the equity of this system. Executive summary Personal income tax is the largest component of tax revenue. Hence any conversation about tax reform should consider the personal income tax system. The individual tax system is designed to be progressive, with increasing marginal tax rates at higher income levels. This contrasts with indirect taxes which are generally flat or slightly regressive in their effect. This analysis uses 2011–12 tax return data on 12,736,030 tax filers to investigate the use of deductions and offsets across income levels. This data provides information at a detailed level of income grouping, including for those with incomes over $1 million in the income year. Wages and salaries formed the bulk of income for most taxpayers except at the lowest and highest income levels. For low income groups, pensions and allowances are also significant, while for very high income earners, income from investments is the major source. However, all income sources were recorded at all income levels, with some low income earners reporting income from partnerships and trusts and investments including rental housing, while a limited number of high income individuals reported income from pensions and allowances. The largest category of deduction recorded in tax return data related to rental deductions. Deductions were larger than income on average for rental properties across all income groups. The highest percentage losses were among those with incomes (net of their rental loss) between$55,001 and $80,000 with deductions exceeding income by more than 28 In general, the value of deductions claimed increased with income. However, for some deductions related to specific forms of earnings, deductions as a proportion of these earnings declined as income increased. The low income tax offset is the largest value tax offset in the individual tax system, and, not surprisingly, low income groups were the main beneficiaries. The second largest value tax offset is the termination payment offset. This offset was of very little value to low and medium income groups, but was of significant value on average to high income earners. For those who claimed this offset and had an income lower than$150,000, it was worth less than $4,000 on average, whereas for those with incomes over$500,001, this offset was worth an average of over $45,000. Despite a greater average value of deductions and offsets to high income earners, overall the progressive nature of the Australian individual income tax system is not significantly reduced

Tertiary education: a quick guide to key internet links

This Quick Guide provides key internet links to information about: general tertiary education resources, higher education, vocational education and training (VET), international students, adult and community education, and international organisations. Note: administrative arrangements announced on 18 September 2013 have altered departmental responsibility for tertiary education. Therefore, links to the Australian Government websites listed below may change as new arrangements take effect

Measures of student achievement: a quick guide

Measures of student achievement are regularly used in the development and evaluation of education policy. This can include the relative achievement of sub-groups in the community (such as the Closing the Gap targets for Indigenous students), an assessment of demand (such as university entrance scores) and for international comparisons.This guide provides a brief overview of the major national and international measures of school student achievement that are conducted and used in Australia

Tertiary education: a quick guide to key internet links

This Quick Guide provides key internet links to information about: general tertiary education resources, higher education, vocational education and training (VET), international students, adult and community education, and international organisations

Image restoration in digital photography

This paper introduces some novel image restoration algorithms for digital photography, which has one of the fastest growing consumer electronics markets in recent years. Many attempts have been made to improve the quality of the digital pictures in comparison with photography taken on films. A lot of these methods have their roots in discrete signal and image processing developed over the last two decades, but the ever-increasing computational power of personal computers has made possible new designs and advanced techniques. The algorithms we are presenting here take advantage of the programmability of the pixels and the availability of a compression codec commonly found inside digital cameras, and work in compliance with either the JPEG or the JPEG-2000 image compression standard.published_or_final_versio

Physically-attractive males increase men's financial risk-taking

Prior research has examined how sexual opposite-sex stimuli impact people's choices and behaviors. However, it is largely unknown whether sexual same-sex stimuli also do so. This research reports an intriguing phenomenon: men who see attractive males take greater financial risks than those who do not. An evolution-based account is proffered and tested across four experiments. In evolutionary history, men have faced greater intrasexual competition in attracting women as a mating partner. Thus, when the average heterosexual man sees males who are more physically-attractive than he is, he is motivated to increase his desirability as a mating partner to women, prompting him to accrue money, and taking financial risks helps him to do so. This research concludes by discussing the implications of the present findings for men today who are constantly bombarded by not only sexual opposite but also same-sex others, such as images that are commonly used in advertising

Food waste trial: Results of resident feedback workshop

Woollahra Municipal Council began a food waste collection trial in September 2006 with approximately 2,400 households in the LGA. During the trial, participating households were able to place all kinds of food waste into their garden waste bin (with their normal garden waste). To assist them to do this, Council provided all households in the trial area with a kitchen tidy bin in which they could collect food scraps. Workshop structure After four months of the trial, residents were invited to attend a workshop to provide their feedback on the trial. The workshop was facilitated by Emma Partridge of ISF, and was held on the evening of Wednesday 14 February, at the Gunyah (Vaucluse Scout Hall), Watsons Bay. The workshop ran for one hour and was attended by thirty-eight (38) local residents who had participated in the trial. The main component of the workshop was a facilitated group discussion about the trial. Participants were invited to make comments about the trial, and these were recorded on butcher's paper. Participants were assured that Emma Partridge would compile their comments into a report to be provided to Woollahra Council. The facilitator structured the discussion by using a series of trigger questions to ensure coverage of all aspects of the trial, and to draw out detailed comment on a number of specific issues. This discussion session elicited numerous constructive comments and questions from participants, which were all recorded. Following the discussion, Emma Partridge gave a short PowerPoint presentation to the group, outlining the results of the residents survey that had been conducted by Council approximately one month prior. The PowerPoint presentation is at Appendix A. The comments made and questions asked by the residents at this feedback workshop have been collated and are summarised in this report. Actual quotes from residents are in italics, and other comments have been summarised or paraphrased

Analysis of the DCT coefficient distributions for document coding

It is known that the distribution of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients of most natural images follow a Laplacian distribution, and this knowledge has been employed to improve decoder design. However, such is not the case for text documents. In this letter, we present an analysis of their DCT coefficient distributions, and show that a Gaussian distribution can be a realistic model. Furthermore, we can use a generalized Gaussian model to incorporate the Laplacian distribution found for natural images.published_or_final_versio

A nonlinear image restoration framework using vector quantization

Vector quantization (VQ) is a powerful method used primarily in signal and image compression. In recent years, it has also been applied to various other image processing tasks, including image classification, histogram modification, and restoration. In this paper, we focus our attention on image restoration using VQ. We present a general framework that incorporates two other methods in the literature, and discuss our method that follows more naturally from this framework. With appropriate training data for the VQ codebook, this method can restore images beyond its diffraction limit. © 2004 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Compound document compression with model-based biased reconstruction

The usefulness of electronic document delivery and archives rests in large part on advances in compression technology. Documents can contain complex layouts with different data types, such as text and images, having different statistical characteristics. To achieve better image quality, it is important to make use of such characteristics in compression. We exploit the transform coefficient distributions for text and images. We show that the scheme in base-line JPEG does not lead to minimum mean-square error if we have models of these coefficients. Instead, we discuss an algorithm designed for this performance that involves first classifying the blocks, and then estimating the parameters to enable a biased reconstruction in the decompression value. Simulation results are shown to validate the advantages of this method. © 2004 SPIE and IS&T.published_or_final_versio