Question

Henry told us in his guide to the Institutional Framework of Taxation in Australia that the Australian Taxation System is one of the most complex in the world and is made up of approximately 125 taxes including taxes such as Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Fringe Benefits Tax and Goods and Services Tax just to name a few. He also mentioned that there are many different organisations that play different and varied roles within this system to ensure its integrity and all Australians are equally treated with equity. The Australian Taxation System is embedded in the way of life for all Australian taxpayers, we pay tax on our income, we pay tax when we purchase goods and use services, we pay tax when we sell assets and this is just to name a few but in return the Government provides services and benefits e.g. hospitals, schools, defence, and financial assistance to those in need etc. As we know the government relies very heavily on the revenue from taxation to be able to finance its activities and services it offers to the public and reforms and reviews on taxation are often a focus of governments. There has been a lot of media attention lately on the extraordinary powers that the Commissioner of Taxation and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has and to whether they are in some way abusing that power in their dealings with small business taxpayers and individuals. There has been a call for an inquiry into the ATO resulting from a number of complaints by taxpayers. The ABC 4Corners programme also released a documentary on this topic in April 2018 and it would be advisable for you to view this as part of your research into the topic

This assessment requires you to review this topical area of taxation (Australian Taxation Office, their powers and are they abusing them) which has been playing out in the media for a number of months now as per Part 1 and Part 2 below.

Part One

Review Australian newspapers such as the West Australian, Financial Review, The Australian, Sunday Times and various others for articles on the area mentioned above. You need to find 10 newspaper articles (these may also be online articles) which will be handed in with your assignment. The articles should be from 2017 or 2018 only. If you do not have access to Australian Newspapers then you may use the Factiva Database within the Curtin Library. A factsheet on how to use this database and a short video presentation is included in the assessment link for this assignment on the Blackboard. These newspaper articles must be scanned or saved as PDF files and uploaded to the Blackboard in the appropriate area within the assessment tab. Please Note we will not accept links to the articles.

Part Two

After reading newspapers and journal articles and using wider research platforms such as the Taxation Administration Act 1953, Australian Taxation Office webpage, journal articles etc on the subject of Powers of the ATO and the perceived abuse of those powers you should be able to form an opinion to whether the ATO in your view are abusing their powers in relation to small businesses and individual taxpayers.

For this area of the assessment you need to explain

a)    What are the ATO powers and where do they come from?

b)    How is the Government dealing with the issues that have arisen from the recent media backlash on the perceived abuse of powers by the ATO?

c)    What is the ATO doing going forward to ensure that they have the Australian public’s confidence again?

d)   What is your opinion on the issue, do you think the ATO are just doing their job and should use whatever power they have at their disposal to collect revenue which is their main job for the Government. Or are you of the opinion that they have too much power and it should be diluted. Do you consider their actions to be abusive? This area is based about your opinion so you need to ensure that you give us your own personal views of the topic and not a summary of the articles you have collected in part one of the assessment task.

The requirements of the assignment for part two is to produce a 1500 word essay on your opinion of this topic which should be based on your findings from the Australian newspapers you have collected and any other research you may want to undertake, please do not just provide a detailed summary of the articles you have included in Part 1

The word limit does not take into account the cover page or references and we will allow an excess of 10%.

You must reference the essay using AGLC3 and a bibliography at the end indicating materials read/used is also required.

Answer 1