CPD fellow Fred Argy, author of 'Australia's Fiscal Striaghtjacket', discussed the downside of tax cuts on ABC Radio, November 15.

As reported in The Age and in New Matilda, analysis by CPD fellow Ian McAuley demonstrates that the tax cuts announced by the Coalition would probably have no greater effect than indexing current tax rates to inflation. Click here for links and source data.

Macgregor Duncan, Andrew Leigh and David Madden call for the reintroduction of an inheritance tax. They argue that an inheritance tax on the super-wealthy would be consistent with the Australian values of ‘egalitarianism’ and a ‘fair go’ and would represent a more efficient way of raising revenue than income or sales tax. In addition to the modest revenue raised from the proposal, the tax would establish incentives for wealthy Australians to increase their currently-low charitable giving

John Freebairn writes, 'Credible arguments can be made to reform all Australian taxes. The easiest case is to consider reforms under the restriction that the aggregate revenue collected remains unchanged and that there are a limited number of winners and losers.'

Ian McAuley writes, 'Turnbull's case would have been stronger if he had suggested closing off the mechanisms for people with high incomes to avoid tax - such as using trusts and private companies which exist for the sole purpose of tax reduction.'

One of the universal burdens today is the increasing level of complexity in everyone's lives. From the poor to the rich, everything seems to be hard to understand, time consuming and bureaucratic. Business has pushed a great deal of customer service back onto the customer, it saves them money, but it costs us time. Who wants to call any kind of customer service line these days?

'Labor needs to integrate its policies in a clear vision and set of values - social values - rather than categorising its policies into 'economic', 'social' and 'environmental' headings with their implications of compromise, trade-off, and contradictions', writes Ian McAuley.