Taxes

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

India is moving towards introducing a Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST would be a multistage comprehensive value added tax (VAT) encompassing both goods and services. Given the federal structure of India and the fact that taxation powers have...

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...

Recently, the Economic Society of Australia polled 49 prominent Australian economists on the issue of GST reform. They asked each member of the panel whether they agreed with the following statement: Increasing government revenue collected through the Goods and Services...

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...

The news has been full of stories about how companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Starbucks and others are able to shift their profits to low or no-tax jurisdictions by using novel, legally permitted corporate structures and complex internal...

Tax the rich and give money to the poor – that is the basis of fiscal policy put forward by the UK Labour Party’s new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. As well as forcing large corporations to pay their “fair share,”...

The public knows something is “not right” with the tax treatment of family trusts (discretionary trusts). Accountants and tax lawyers working with discretionary trusts know firsthand that the income tax treatment has trouble passing the “smell test”. That is something...

In his recent speech on personal income tax cuts, Treasurer Joe Hockey made clear that the “common cause of reform [of the tax system is] to improve the growth trajectory of the Australian economy”. The key to this for Hockey...

When an international development conference in Addis Ababa almost collapsed last week, the confrontation emerged from an obscure and unlikely source. Who knew that the status of the UN Tax Committee could so stir the emotions? After taking negotiations to...

If you ask anyone what the Magna Carta is all about, you might be told that it is some sort of proto-human rights or constitutional document. This largely results from the fame and after-life of two particular clauses (39 and...