Working paper

Hundreds and thousands: bunching at positive, salient tax balances and the cost of reducing tax liabilities

Australian taxpayers display reference-dependent preferences when filing their tax returns - they bunch at positive and salient thresholds. In this paper, the authors develop a model of taxpayer behaviour to show that bunching heterogeneity reflects both differences in preferences and the rate at which the...
Working paper

Paying back Australia's COVID-19 debt

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a sudden and steep increase in Australia’s public debt, as in most other countries. This paper investigates and assesses ways in which Australia can bring its debt down to fiscally sustainable levels through the tax and transfer system.
Working paper

COVID-19 private pension withdrawals and unemployment tenures

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a range of previously untested major policy responses from governments, including allowing people to make early withdrawals from their superannuation accounts. This paper evaluates the impacts on people's retirement savings.
Working paper

Occupational mobility in the ALife data: how reliable are occupational patterns from administrative Australian tax records?

The purpose of this paper is to compare the distribution of occupation and rates of occupational mobility in the ATO Longitudinal Information Files (ALife) and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) datasets.
Policy report

Corporate income taxation in Australia: theory, current practice and future policy directions

This report provides a framework for policy analysis of the corporate income tax system in Australia to broaden understanding of the topic and heighten policy debate.