New Zealand’s Family Assistance Tax Credits: Evolution and Operation

The Family Assistance Tax Credits provide income-tested (and in some cases work-tested) financial assistance for families with financially dependent children who are living at home. This paper describes the evolution and operation of the Family Assistance programmes. This description clarifies how these programmes have evolved and operate and provides a basis for future research. The topics discussed in this paper are as follows: the programmes that preceded the Family Assistance programmes; the changing levels of assistance, abatement regimes and eligibility criteria for each of the Family Assistance programmes; the roles of the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Social Development in administering the Family Assistance programmes; the definitions of income in operation in the social welfare and tax systems, the calculation of the taxation and abatement of social welfare benefits and the calculation of Family Assistance entitlement; the calculation of the impact of the Family Assistance programmes on the financial rewards from work; and the fiscal cost to the government of the social assistance system in general and the Family Assistance programmes in particular.Social security, social assistance, refundable tax rebates

New Zealand’s Social Assistance System: Financial Incentives to Work

This paper is a stock take of the financial incentives to work present in New Zealand’s social assistance system. The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for research on problems facing the social assistance system and dilemmas that would be likely to arise when considering potential initiatives to address such problems. The current financial incentives to work contained in the social assistance system reflect efforts to tailor different financial incentives to different groups in the population. No single structure of financial incentives is appropriate for all people and at all times. It is therefore necessary from time to time to consider whether existing financial incentives continue to meet government objectives, such as encouraging work among different groups in the population. Improving the structure of financial incentives, however, defies simple solutions and requires trade-offs between competing and conflicting objectives to be made. In order to set the scene for later discussion, this paper begins with a brief description of the evolution of New Zealand’s social assistance system. This paper then moves on to discuss the financial returns from social assistance programmes and the distribution of the financial disincentives to work present in the current social assistance system. A number of further considerations are then discussed, particularly accommodation and childcare costs and the length of time that people tend to spend on social welfare benefits. This paper then considers the need for trade-offs between policy outcomes when developing policy initiatives to improve financial incentives to work before presenting a summary of its main findings. Appendixes to this paper describe the programmes that make up New Zealand’s three-tier social assistance system, key features of the personal income tax scale, a method for calculating Effective Marginal Tax Rates (EMTRs), and TaxMod and the Household Economic Survey (HES).Social Security, Social Assistance

Measuring Productivity in the Health Sector

Over the next few decades governments will increasingly need to balance the new and growing demands facing the health system with a tighter fiscal outlook. The best way to protect standards while responding to these pressures will be to lift productivity. This article draws on a recent New Zealand Productivity Commission inquiry into state sector productivity and discusses the implications of this work for the health sector. It begins by highlighting the importance of health sector productivity, particularly given the fiscal outlook. It then discusses recent efforts to measure productivity in the health system, before outlining possible next steps in measuring the sector’s productivity

The Tax-benefit Interface

This article discusses the interaction of the tax and benefit systems (the tax–benefit interface). It shows profiles of combined taxation and benefit abatement (effective marginal tax rate profiles) for two families, before discussing lessons that could be drawn from these profiles for policy. One theme that emerges is the need for simplification. Yet rather than pursuing simplification through grands projets, such as a universal basic income, what is needed is a focus on detailed design issues, such as how tightly programmes respond to fluctuations in hours of work and incomes

The Association Between High Flow Nasal Cannula Therapy and Intubation in Acute Respiratory Failure Patients, A Single Center Retrospective Analysis

Background: High flow nasal cannula therapy is becoming a more common therapy in the adult population. Multiple studies have been conducted on the potential benefits of this therapy such as increased patient tolerance of the therapy, improved secretion clearance and the ability for providers to deliver a greater range of FiO2 settings at a wider range of flow rates. With the increasing utility of this therapy, the research for best practices, setting (FiO2 and LPM) and duration of therapy to guide clinicians is lacking. Aim: 1) Does high flow nasal cannula therapy reduce the need for intubation or re-intubation in patients with hypoxic respiratory failure, as compared to continuous positive airway pressure or bi-level positive airway pressure therapy? 2) How do variations in setting of high flow nasal cannula therapy affect the need for intubation or re-intubation, mortality and hospital length of stay? Methods: Subjects for this study were adults, ages 18-99 years old with a diagnosis of respiratory failure. Group 1 (n=213) was created to determine whether initial high flow treatment for respiratory failure may decrease intubation rates, as compared to continuous positive airway pressure or bi-level positive airway pressure therapy. Group 2 (n=88) examined whether high flow nasal cannula therapy was associated with lower re-intubation rates when high flow was administered to post ventilator respiratory failure patients. An in-group analysis of high flow nasal cannula therapy was done in both groups to examine how variation in setting affected patient outcomes. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 24. Results: In Group 1, the analysis of high flow nasal cannula therapy vs. continuous positive airway pressure or bi-level positive airway pressure therapy found no significant difference in intubation rates, p=0.119. No significant difference was found between type of NIV therapy used for post extubation patients and the rate of re-intubation for Group 2, p=0.789. In-group analysis of high flow cannula setting (FiO2 and LPM) found that there was no significant difference associated with high flow administration and reduced mortality in Group 1 (FiO2 p=0.0988, LPM p=0.502 or Group 2 (FiO2 p=0.194, LPM p=0.449). There was no significant difference in the need for intubation or re-intubation in both Group 1 (FiO2 p=0.992, LPM p=0.716) and Group 2 (FiO2 p=0.746, LPM p=0.592). Conclusion: This study suggests that high flow nasal cannula therapy performed similarly as continuous positive airway pressure or bi-level positive airway pressure therapy in preventing intubation and re-intubation rates. The group analysis of high flow nasal cannula therapy settings suggests that variation in the setting did not impact intubation or re-intubation rates

Consumer Response to Increases in the State Cigarette Tax

In this paper I look at consumer responsiveness to the cigarette tax. Cigarette taxes are motivated by wanting to raise money for the state and wanting to deter smoking in the state’s population. Obviously reducing smoking in the population would reduce the externalities caused by smoking. We know the health effects are completely detrimental to the consumer, and detrimental to those around them. In addition to this we know that tobacco is an addictive substance, meaning than is inherently extremely inelastic. To find on how consumers respond to tax increases I conducted a difference in difference analysis of tax revenue before and after a state tax increase and compared them to a state that had a similar level before the tax increase. This showed me how effective the taxes were at raising revenue, but it also allowed me to calculated consumption in the state. I hypothesized that there would be very large increases in the revenue gained after the tax increases and that consumption would remain stable through the tax increases. What I found was that there were rather large increases in revenue, but even more significant decreases in the packs sold in the state. The decrease in packs sold however cannot be considered a decrease in consumption since we know there is an extremely high level of tax avoidance that occurs with cigarettes. According to studies, the decrease in packs sold just points to avoidance by cross border shopping and smuggling, meaning that consumption on the whole remains relatively constant. Tax increases are effective at increasing revenue, but it cannot be said that they are effective at reducing consumption because of the high level of tax avoidance that occurs

Small task-oriented groups : a systems analysis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education at Massey University

Where two or more people are gathered together in order to engage in social interaction - there is a social system". (Anon.) The question of why it is that people come together in systems of interaction and how these systems persist as viable social arrangements is one which has been taken up by social philosophers and sociological theorists as far back as Hobbes. Subsequently Spencer, Durkheim, and such contemporary figures as Homans, Merton and Parsons have also taken issue with this problem. The present thesis shares a similar concern with the problem and derives its stimulus from the way in which sociologists have attempted to formulate adequate explanatory theories. The thesis exhibits a convergence in the interests of the two authors - on the one hand, an interest in the application of parsonian theory' to small group phenomena, and on the other, the use of 'systems theory' in the explanation of social interaction in educational settings. The specific focus of attention is on those groups which have the properties of being small and task-oriented. Such groups are ubiquitous in educational contexts. At the most general level the thesis uses Parsons' voluntaristic theory of social action as the frame of reference from which a theory of small task-oriented groups can be derived. The thesis is therefore an expedition into the realms of sociological theory and an exploration of the way in which parsons' theory in particular can be applied to an empirical situation. Elements of general systems theory have been employed to further limit the scope of the investigation by focussing only on the internal dynamic of small task-oriented groups, rather than the way in which they adapt to their surrounding environments, thus enabling such groups to be conceptualised as discrete social systems in their own right. [From Introduction

Advancing Karl Jaspers: The Connection Between the Theory of Existential Communication and Mentoring Satisfaction

Existential philosopher Karl Jaspers’s theory (1932/1970; 1935/1971b) of existential communication is understood to be his most important contribution to existentialism. Additionally, this theory has unique ties to the phenomena of communication, begging its use as a dialogic theory. However, Jaspers’s theory has been relatively untouched by academia. This thesis understands the theory of existential communication through an operationalization of its aspects and explicitly connecting them to communicative behaviors. These aspects of existential communication are (1) vulnerability, (2) open-mindedness, and (3) equality. This study set out to determine whether these aspects could be found within mentoring relationships and support the aspects related to mentoring satisfaction. The results indicated that all three aspects are found in some mentoring relationships; however, only the aspect of open-mindedness has a significantly positive relation to mentoring satisfaction. Thus, it may be beneficial for mentoring programs to provide education for both mentors and mentees to exhibit the communicative behavior of open-mindedness. Future research should continue to test this operationalization of the theory of existential communication through different contexts and methodologies

THE FINANCIAL ASSETS OF HOUSEHOLDS IN IRELAND. ESRI General Research Series Paper No. 162, 1993

This paper describes how different types of household allocate their financial assets. We look at household characteristics such as wealth, income, age, sex, and socio-economic group and at financial assets from bank deposits and Government savings schemes to equities and life assurance. Though wealth in the form of housing is examined, the focus is primarily on financial assets