During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian government allowed eligible individuals to withdraw up to $20,000 (around half median annual wage income), across two tranches, from their retirement accounts, ordinarily inaccessible until retirement. This paper examines the consequences for people's retirement savings.

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.

In this paper, the authors estimate the effect of the Australian JobKeeper payment COVID-19 wage subsidy on payroll jobs and wages at the employer-level using novel administrative datasets.

This working paper argues that a public policy and structural reform priority should be placed on coordinated actions to amend the Australian tax system in ways that reduce fiscal vulnerabilities and improve societal wellbeing.

This paper presents some of the simpler strategies that are part of the ‘Tax Planning Playbook’. In doing so, it shows how tax planning is available to people across the income distribution. It also raises questions about the longer-term sustainability of Australia’s tax system.