History of tax reform in Australia: Early federation reviews and 1942 income tax unification

Crawford School of Public Policy | Tax and Transfer Policy Institute
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Event details

Public Seminar

Date & time

Friday 21 August 2020
4.00pm–5.00pm

Venue

ANU Online Zoom Meeting

Speaker

Mr Paul Tilley, TTPI Visiting Fellow

Contacts

Diane Paul
02 61259318

Please note this event will be recorded.
An audio recording and PowerPoint slides from the event, are available in the downloads tab.

In the first five decades of Australia as a federated nation, tax reform efforts were driven by the need to establish robust revenue bases for a growing nation and settle the relative taxing responsibilities of the Commonwealth and state governments. These decades were also a time of crises for the nation with two world wars and a depression, these events being catalysts for tax and welfare reforms and influencers of the nature and extent of government in Australia. While the Constitution gave the Commonwealth exclusive access to customs and excise duties, other taxes were open to both levels of government and they soon found themselves in competition. That competition became most intense over income tax. The attempts to resolve this were the focus of the 1920–23 and 1932–34 royal commissions into taxation and ultimately the 1942 takeover of income tax by the Commonwealth. This paper tracks those developments.

Paul Tilley brings long-standing experience on tax and public finance from his 30-year public service career in Treasury, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the OECD. Paul has since published a book on the history of the Australian Treasury, teaches a tax policy course at Melbourne University and is currently writing a series of papers on the history of tax reform in Australia. His research and experience is of great relevance to TTPI’s activities.

Please register your attendance at the registration tab above.

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