Personal Finance

1 December 2015

The Benefits of a Banking GST for Australia

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has argued for broadening the GST base to include all financial services, something also floated by the Financial System Inquiry. The idea has merit, although the complexity of the issue makes assessing the consequences and...

20 November 2015

Not too Big to Fail, but Nothing Learned

Do you remember the 2007-08 banking crash? In the build up to it, UK bankers made vast profits and their executives collected big bonuses. After the crash, taxpayers bailed them out, which led to increased government borrowing. We have all...

19 November 2015

Tax Code Simplification Presidential Candidate-Style

One of the 17 presidential candidates recently said, “I can write a tax code in three pages.” Carly Fiorina is not alone among her fellow 2016 presidential contenders in advocating tax reform and simplification of the tax code. However, none...

19 November 2015

Shadow Banking’s Global Reach

In August, the Financial Times reported that 11 Chinese shadow banks had written an open letter to the top party official in Hebei (河北) province asking for a bailout. Soon afterwards, Foreign Policy magazine ran a story headlined, “Shadow banking is killing China’s stock...

17 November 2015

Implementing the ‘Plastax’ in the UK

Last month, England became the latest government – and last among members of the UK – to pass a policy to combat the recent rise in the use of disposable plastic shopping bags, in its case a five-pence charge for...

13 November 2015

A Wale(s) of a Tax Strategy

Companies such as Apple, Starbucks, and Amazon are well known for legally using international law to their advantage when it comes to tax. Now a small Welsh town is mimicking their tactics. Independent traders in Crickhowell are moving their businesses...

4 November 2015

The Potential in Splitting Australia’s GST into Two

The overflowing rubbish tips of Lagos, the Pacific Ocean garbage patch, and the huge electronic graveyard of Guiyu, China might seem irrelevant to Australia’s current debate over reforming the Goods and Services Tax. Yet all three of these far-flung places...

28 October 2015

A Lesson in Fairness for a Retirement Savings System

Australia is engaged in an ongoing debate about the fairness of the superannuation system. Those on the highest incomes are extracting the greatest and an unfair advantage from tax benefits currently available. This problem of perception is inevitable in a...

26 October 2015

The Latest South African Tax Proposals are Far-reaching

There was a time when, from a tax perspective, South Africa’s “mini budget” used to be a non-event. The main emphasis was on the annual budget speech delivered in February each year when they announced tax policy proposals. There was...

22 October 2015

Paying to Pay for Something

Credit card surcharging is in the news. Apparently, consumers are going to benefit by new surcharge limits that will be imposed on retailers. However, what is surcharging? In addition, why does it need limits? Moreover, is surcharging a good or...

22 October 2015

Finding the Middle Ground on Dividend Taxation

With tax reform back on the agenda, the future of dividend imputation remains uncertain. Allowed in Australia since 1987, dividend imputation ensures companies and shareholders don’t end up paying tax on the same income, commonly known as “double taxation”. It...

20 October 2015

The Australian Government Tackles Superannuation

The government has today accepted virtually all of the recommendations of the expert panel behind last year’s Financial System Inquiry. Clearly, we can argue about some, and people would prefer to pick and choose depending on their predilections, but rather...

12 October 2015

The U.K. Government Crack Down on Tax Avoidance…Not So Much

Corporate tax policy says more about power than anything else does. Corporations seek to minimise the tax they pay – and, while governments ordinarily try to maximise their revenues, in the case of transnational corporations (TNCs) they understand that they...