In the 1980s the Australian Personal Income Tax was highly progressive and family payments were universal. The system ranked well in terms of gender equity and female labour supply incentives. During the Howard years the progressivity of the rate scale declined dramatically despite rising inequality...

This paper shows that the proposed reforms would consolidate the existing family tax system, which clearly fails in terms of both fairness and disincentives. In the early 1980’s Australia had a highly progressive individual income tax and universal family payments. The paper proposes a return...

The paper proposes a return to a progressive individual based income tax and universal family payments for dependent children, for reasons of both fairness and efficiency, and argues for the elimination of policy instruments that create complexity and serve only to reduce the transparency of...

In recent years, the US, UK and Australia have lowered tax rates on high incomes and expanded tax credits and family transfer payments that are withdrawn on the joint income of a couple. These reforms result in significant changes in the structure of marginal and...

Cross country comparisons of lifecycle labour supplies show that female hours of market work are significantly lower in Australia than in other comparable OECD countries, notably, the US, UK and Sweden. This paper argues that an explanation can be found in the rate structure of...