ANU Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI)
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The Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI) ran from 1999 to 2005. The partnership of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Australian National University (ANU) produced ground-breaking research on how voluntary taxpaying cultures can be maintained and why cooperation and contestation occur within the tax system. The work of the Centre located tax systems and their administration within the context of democratic governance where the fair and reasonable treatment of citizens is understood to be a basic entitlement.
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Item Open Access Bringing It Together (BIT). Volume 1: An Annotated Bibliography relating to voluntary tax compliance(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), The Australian National University) Ahmed, Eliza; McCrae, Jason; Braithwaite, Valerie; Sakurai, YukaThis annotated bibliography brings together the research collections of the CTSI (Centre for Tax System Integrity) and ATO (Australian Taxation Office) Knowledge Development Network (KDNet). The listed entries (published and unpublished) span 5 decades from 1957 to 2003. We hope that people working in the tax administrations and the tax research will find this collaborative endeavor a valuable resource and a useful database for making decisions and implementing policy.Item Open Access Constructing compliance: Another look at game-playing in international taxation.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Picciotto, SolIt is now some 200 years since Adam Smith suggested his four `canons’ of a good tax system: equity, certainty, convenience and economy.1 We are still wrestling with the problems of achieving these ideals. From one point of view it could be said that tax systems have become remarkably effective, at least in OECD countries, where tax revenues amounted on average to some 37% of GDP in 2001. On the other hand, most of those who work with or study tax systems, let alone the general public who are exposed to them, would probably think that Smith’s standards are some way from being met. This paper aims to make a further contribution to some of the recent debates about the improvement of tax systems and the problem of tax compliance. My own interests are in international taxation and tax avoidance, but in discussing the issue of compliance and avoidance in this paper, I will also give some consideration to small business and individual taxpayers. The first part of the paper explores the question of interpretation of rules and the problem of avoidance and game-playing. My starting-point is the issue of lack of clarity or indeterminacy of rules and how they are interpreted, which brings in the question of creativity. Here I discuss in particular the work of Doreen McBarnet, although I take a slightly different approach to the issue of creativity. I explore this in the context of the historical development of international taxation principles. This leads on to the issue of fairness and complexity in tax law, and the relationship between the way tax rules are formulated and taxpayer attitudes, and in turn to the issue of the relationship between detailed rules and broad principles and standards, which has recently been explored by John Braithwaite, following up work by David Weisbach and others, and applied to taxation. My approach gives I think added weight to John Braithwaite’s proposal for the use of broad principles in conjunction with exemplary (but not exhaustive) detailed rules in tax law. However, I suggest that this approach should not be limited to the adoption of a broad anti-avoidance principle (usually referred to, confusingly, as a general antiavoidance rule or GAAR), but should be applied to the tax code more generally. I end by exploring the issue of improving compliance by the general run of individual taxpayers and reducing their propensity to game-playing and avoidance, in relation to those taxpayers’ views about the fairness of the tax code in general, and to the ability of large taxpayers to employ game-playing and avoidance techniques.Item Open Access Political barriers through educational opportunity: The unexpected consequences of HECS policy. June 2005.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Ahmed, Eliza; Braithwaite, ValerieThis paper is one of a series that has empirically tested the proposition that whilst the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) was implemented with the intention of improving access to university education for all Australians, it has had unexpected and unwanted consequences for governance more generally, particularly of the tax system. We use data from the “Graduates’ Hopes, Visions and Actions Survey” based on a sample of 447 Australian graduates who recently completed their tertiary education. Findings suggest that while HECS policy appears to have met its objective of enabling less privileged groups to obtain a university degree, it has also given rise to resistance to the policy, to paying back the loan and tax evasion. This research demonstrates the dangers of implementing higher education policy in a way that dissociates the economic aspects of policy from the social and community attitudes in which it is inevitably embedded.Item Open Access The Australian Taxation Office's approaches to aggressive tax planning.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Fitzpatrick, KevinI would like to take the opportunity today to outline our current approaches including some of the key learnings from the mass marketed schemes experience.Item Open Access Trends in book-tax income and balance sheet differences.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Mills, Lillian; Newberry, Kaye; Trautman, William BConference paperItem Open Access The value added of underground activities: Size and measurement of the shadow economies of 110 countries all over the world.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Schneider, FriedrichUsing various methods estimates about the size of the shadow economy in 110 developing, transition and OECD countries are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (in percent of official GDP) over 1999-2000 in developing countries is 41%, in transition countries 38% and in OECD countries 18.0%. An increasing burden of taxation and social security contributions combined with rising state regulatory activities are the driving forces for the growth and size of the shadow economy (labor force).Item Open Access Pleased to meet you. Won't you guess my name?: Reducing identity fraud in the Australian tax system.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Pontell, HenryConference paperItem Open Access Closing remarks [to the] Centre for Tax System Integrity's Third International Conference on 'Responsive Regulation: International perspectives on taxation', Canberra, 24-25 July 2003.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Bartos, StephenI think the ATO has to be congratulated for the joint initiative with CTSI which is actually searching out evidence on which to base policy. I wish more areas of government would do the same – a strikingly large amount of policy in Canberra is based on preconceptions and theoretical presumptions rather than empirical research.Item Open Access Tax morale in Latin America.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Torgler, BennoConference paperItem Open Access Deterrence and morale in taxation: An empirical analysis.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Frey, Bruno S; Feld, Lans PConference paperItem Open Access Current developments in UK tax compliance research.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Connor, John; Hasseldine, John; Hite, Peggy; James, Simon; Toumi, MarikaConference paperItem Open Access Who me? I didn't do anything wrong: Trust, resistance and compliance among tax scheme investors.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Murphy, KristinaConference paperItem Open Access Qualitative research results: The New Zealand cash economy. A study of tax evasion amongst small and medium businesses.(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Noble, PeterConference paperItem Open Access New tax system; tax evasion; being in step; interesting facts(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access From the Australian Tax System Survey of Tax Scheme Investors (2002)(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS)(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access GST; fair shares; tax reduction; cash economy(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access Tax scheme investors(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access From the 'How Fair, How Effective Survey' Tax cuts; trust in the ATO(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.Item Open Access Paying taxes(Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University) Australian National University. Centre for Tax System IntegrityTax Snaps presents CTSI's most recent statistics on what Australians think about tax matters. In our survey work, where we contact random samples of Australians, we often find views that are a little different from those we commonly hear about in the media. These are the views that we select as a Tax Snap.