Once you slow the growth under 3 per cent, unemployment starts to rise again. Then you’re gone. You’re a banana republic
-Keating Musical is back and this time at the Seymour Theatre
Tall Media Dragons should pay more in taxes than short people, according to a Harvard economics professor, N. Gregory Mankiw, and his student, Matthew Weinzierl, in a paper published last week Why Not Tax the Tall?
The story of tax administration is a really big one Is Richo’s tax bill being secretly settled by the ATO?
Political ambassadors open heart online The biggest Story in Australian Political History
A Paper that examines the common law and taxation of trusts and the practical application of these principles in the use of trusts as a tax-planning vehicle. It is curious to note that an article in Taxation in Australia in May 1998, the writer, a tax partner with Coopers & Lybrand in Brisbane, Simon Gaylard, stated "We were warning people back in 1975 to be prepared for the possibility of trusts being taxed as companies and advising them to act cautiously,".
Without inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kindred to the United Kingdom. Without inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kindred to the United Kingdom
Back in 1994 and 1995 when independents still ruled the Parliament at NSW and I was able to observe the power insider the corridors of the bear pit one amazing story was in the making. Nothing new - two duty free store owners in New South Wales, went out of business. The matter would have achieved no further significance had it been left to lie at that. However a curious legal challenge was to unfold. For some unknown reason a pilot was arrested for ‘smuggling’ tobacco from Norfolk Island to New South Wales. The ‘smuggling’ practice was so renown that purpose-built transport aircraft were used for the regular deliveries. That Customs became involved in the incident is mystifying as the practice had existed for many years. The owners of the aircraft successfully defended the charge as the tobacco was simply being transported between States and not imported into Australia for the first time. That the complex system was in place to avoid duty is not the element it was lawful. By coincidence, the owners of two duty free stores became embroiled in an action with the New South Wales government over the State levies by way of licensing. Legal representatives for the parties became aware of the importation case and took action in the High Court to have the convictions for the breaches of the Business Franchise Licenses (Tobacco) Act 1987 (NSW). Though the verdict was contrary to precedents set in Dickenson’s Arcade Pty Ltd v Tasmania (1974); Dennis Hotels Pty Ltd v Victoria (1960); Philip Morris Ltd v Comr of Business Franchises (Vic) (1989); Capital Duplicators Pty Ltd v Australian Capital Territory (No2) (1993), it was held that the State could not impose such levies and that they constituted an excise provided by S 90 of the Constitution. The difference being the manner in which the licenses had been based, in New South Wales the fee was based entirely on the total value of sales rather than a set license fee basis and therefore found to be a tax. The only action the New South Wales government had to take was to let the action stand ignore the lost revenue and reset its licensing system back to levels successfully held in the Dickensons and other cases.
There the matter may have lay undisturbed for another sixty years but in an interesting political move the Howard, Liberal Government encouraged the Carr, Labor Government to allow the matter to go before the full bench of the High Court even though the plaintiffs’ summons for reference to the Full Court had been dismissed by Kirby J . The Howard Government even financed the legal challenge as under S 96 of the Constitution the Federal Government can grant financial assistance as it thinks fit. Surely the Carr Government should have been aware of ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’. The outcome was obvious to even the most inexperienced of constitutional law students. The Carr Government was soundly beaten and the State taxation issue sent into disarray.
• The Common Law and Taxation of Trusts in Australia in the Twenty-First Century Suggested Outcomes ; [As F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, the powerful and rich are different from you and me … The most successful Liberal premier in NSW -- and only two have won elections -- would have been 100 this month. But no one bothered (or dared) to remember. Robert Askin: the legacy that dare not speak its name; It turns out that the dollar is now officially worthless (reaching its lowest point against the pound in 15 years) Early in the film Mr. Russo, the narrator, asserts that every president since Woodrow Wilson and every member of Congress has perpetrated a hoax to tax people’s wages and issue them dubious currency.... NY Times Pans Anti-Tax Movie America: From Freedom to Fascism ]
• · In the words of Louis XIV's finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it involves plucking the most goose feathers with the least amount of hissing. Men talk about tax, women act on it ; Tax breaks for Aussie films; Additionally, for the first time, studios and filmmakers will be able to access information on financial and tax incentives dynamically on a global basis ... Online tool, program expansion among efforts
