Gizmodo: “Openly recognizing their companies’ past failures in rare displays of modesty, Facebook and Twitter executives touted new efforts to combat state-sponsored propaganda across their platforms before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, acknowledging that the task is often “overwhelming” and proving a massive drain on their resources
The House
Committee on Tax and Revenue has today presented its report
on taxpayer engagement with the tax system.
Presenting the report in
the House of Representatives today, Committee
Chair Mr Jason Falinski MP said that the Committee’s 13 recommendations are
aimed at making tax obligations in Australia easier to administer and easier
for taxpayers to comply with.
“This inquiry involved a
comprehensive assessment of the state of play of tax administration in
Australia and in comparable nations overseas,” Mr Falinski said.
“The Committee found that
while the ATO’s ‘Reinvention’ as a modern tax administration service is well
underway, our complex tax system is throwing up some hurdles to full
automation—as advanced in Sweden, the United Kingdom and closer to home New
Zealand, where most taxpayers need only approve a prefilled form.”
Reflecting back to the 2010
Review of Australia’s Future Taxation System, the first recommendation
calls for a complete review of the tax system by 2022, to achieve a system that
responds to the rapidly evolving digital environment, and is both easier to
enforce and understand.
To address more immediate
needs, recommendations are also made to close up loopholes associated with high
risk industries and the growth of the gig or sharing economy. These include, to:
- consider the introduction of an ABN withholding tax system at source, with potential for grading according to industry sector, akin to the system in New Zealand; and
- standardise our workplace expenses deductions scheme, as done in other comparable nations, to reduce the potential for error and misrepresentation.
The
Committee has also called for greater responsiveness from the ATO to the needs
of taxpayers and other stakeholders. This includes continued access to paper
forms and information for those not technically enabled, implementing a service
level agreement with all stakeholders affected by the agency’s changing
practices, and the clear articulation of the rights and obligations of both the
ATO and taxpayers in a single cohesive and easily understood tax engagement
framework.
Another recommendation is
for more rigorous monitoring of outcomes of behavioural economics methods and
tools to ensure taxpayer funds are well invested.
“Accountability is the key
to confidence,” Mr Falinski said.
“The recommendations made
by the Committee in this report, if implemented, will provide greater certainty
for business planning, increase taxpayer confidence in the ATOs’ probity and
efficiency, and reduce the potential for cash activity and tax avoidance.”
The inquiry was referred
to the Committee in December 2017. Copies of the report and information about the inquiry are
available on the
Committee’s website.
Time for a simpler tax system (report on taxpayer engagement with the tax system )
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