Glenn Wheatley is jailed for $300,000 in tax cheating. Yet an unnamed tax cheat who owed tax totalling $242million gets away with no prosecution, writes Chris Seague.
Tax
Fake contractors gouging our tax base: unions
Australia is facing an ongoing drain on tax revenue as a result of the failure of the Howard Government’s attempts to prevent “bogus contracting” from undermining the tax base.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Tax and the family home
Crikey readers weigh in on tax and the family home, the idea of community-funded reporting and the continual fight for equal pay for women.
A hard, tough and brutal tax debate is brewing
Tax reform shouldn’t be easy. Yet it is not clear that any reform will actually flow from the Henry Review, writes Sinclair Davidson.
Tips for tax cheats: who the ATO are going after this year
Want hints on how to be a tax cheat? Then read the new Australian Taxation Office compliance, where they actually tip you off on what they’re looking for.
$34 to veterans, $31 to East Asia and $2.35 to the Library: your tax at work
Finally, thanks to the glories of the internet, you can see exactly where your tax dollars are going. How much is being spent on welfare cheats or the communists at the ABC?
Looking out for the ladies: Australia’s future tax system
In considering the community’s aspirations for the type of society that Australia should become over the next two decades and beyond, which key features should inform or drive the future design of the Australian tax-transfer system?
In defence of taxes
Taxes aren’t bad, says Joseph Heath, they’re just misunderstood.
Geithner’s loophole
Why would Obama go to such lengths to protect Timothy Geithner after revelations he avoided $35,000 in tax? Perhaps it was precisely for this ability to manoeuvre around the rules, suggests Timothy Carney.
Letter from...: Richmond, Virginia, USA
The elitist media and those in Congress and the White House who have been suggesting the rallies were orchestrated and faux-populist events ginned up by partisans and special interest groups are dead wrong, writes Karyn McDermott.
Texas governor puts secession on the table over tax
Texas Governor Rick Perry says that the state has the right to secede if Washington keeps taxing them at the same level and ramping up spending. But yes, it’s probably just an idle threat.
A long history of teabagging
The Tea Party Movement was started and is backed by major conservative think tanks, despite all the talk of grassroots organisation.
Political snippets: A word on so-called economic experts
Their views have become the staple diet of news services. On the hour, every hour we are treated to economic expert A from financial institution X, followed later in the day by Mr or Ms B from bank Y.
Slashing middle class welfare will hurt women
Here we go again — the ‘middle class welfare’ pink flag is raised to justify cutting payments which essentially go to women, writes Eva Cox.
Ask the economists: Could a GST cut be coming?
Could the Rudd Government be contemplating a cut in the GST?Crikey asked a group of leading Australian economists if a cut in the rate of GST is the best hope for boosting growth:
Gruen: Tax reform we can believe in? Count me in
Ken Henry’s speech yesterday contained some worthy ideas, writes Dr Nicholas Gruen.
Ken Henry a welcome addition to the public tax debate
Ken Henry’s appearance at the Press Club yesterday was a thing of wonder, writes Bernard Keane.
Coalition continues pushing money to rich pensioners
A $30 rise is not enough for the really poor pensioners with no income and is too much for those well off pensioners that Peter Costello stuck on the public tit in his last couple of budgets, writes Eva Cox.
Crikey Essay: Churches, tax and deniability
The Australian $80 billion not-for-profit sector is facing two reviews, one by Treasury and one by a Senate Committee, which entails a long overdue look at tax exemption for the unrelated-to-religion commercial businesses of the churches, writes Max Wallace.
Phoenix companies: a lurk on the rise
A showdown is looming between the Australian Taxation Office and Liquidators over the explosion in use of phoenix companies, writes Chris Seage.
The Lowy tax settlement: I was there
I know nothing about the Lowy tax case except what I have read about in the papers. But that particular day I will never forget. It was as if the tax office had lost its innocence, writes a former ATO officer who was there.
457 visa argument revives anti-migrant sentiments
The strained logic underprinning the thesis that 457 visas are supressing inflation and wages veers into Hanson-esque language in its argument against migration, writes Andrew Bartlett.
10,000 457s a month keeping down inflation — and wages
457 visas are now being granted at a rate of more than 10,000 a month. In June, 1,200 of those visas took less than a week to process, writes Michael Pascoe.
