At Nexia Australia, we pride ourselves on helping our clients through being thought leaders. And one way of helping our clients – indirectly, at least – is providing thought leadership on resolving Australia’s long-term gridlock in reforming our broken tax system.
Thought leadership on tax reform
Over the last year, The Tax Institute – the leading forum for the tax community in Australia – brought together hundreds of taxation experts, economists and other thought leaders to explore reform ideas. Everything was on the table – no subject was off limits. This culminated in their mammoth 287-page tax reform discussion paper released in July, The Case for Change.
Our highlights selection
Nexia Australia was invited to nominate particular measures to be brought to the Assistant Treasurer’s attention. Although none of the paper’s many reform ideas are to be considered in isolation, our thought leadership here was in choosing which ones to highlight.
We chose the following:
- Rebalance the tax mix to shift away from heavy reliance on income and corporate tax towards greater reliance on GST
- Single corporate tax rate of no more than 25%
- Review superannuation taxation
- De-politicise tax reform by establishing a non-partisan, independent tax policy and reform commission
For our society to be the best it can be, we need a tax system that encourages the right kinds of behaviour, discourages the wrong kinds, and supports a social safety net. Australia’s tax system does not uphold these ideals. It works against us, not for us, and is in dire need of genuinely holistic reform.
The above are a mere selection of what genuine tax reform might include (amongst many other coherent changes), and the possible means of achieving it.
We look forward to any further discussion with the government or any other meaningful contribution we can make to achieving genuine holistic reform of our tax system.
Should you wish to discuss any of these proposed measures or Australia's tax reform possibilities in more detail, please feel free to contact your local Nexia Tax Advisor.
Article by David Montani2021
