Hugh McDermott for Prospect

by Miranda Stewart

In January 2013, Mr Chris Jordan AO starts as Federal Commissioner of Taxation in charge of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). He follows Mr Michael D’Ascenzo AO, who was not reappointed after his seven-year term.

Mr Jordan will be only the 12th Commissioner and only the second external appointment in the ATO’s history. All appointments have been male. The first Commissioner, George McKay, appointed from the New South Wales public service in 1910, seems to have died from overwork in 1917 after administering on a shoestring the federal land tax and income tax introduced in 1915 to help fund World War I. The next Commissioner, Robert Ewing, appointed an assistant commissioner to help. In his 22 year innings until 1939, Mr Ewing oversaw a new federal estate tax, payroll tax, and the turbulent time before World War II, when the federal government took over the income taxes of the States.

by Karl Fitzgerald

All other things being equal, the owners of the earth have a comparative advantage over those in business or earning a wage. With $21 trillion hidden in global tax havens revealed this year (), and Starbucks, Amazon and Google being grilled in the UK Parliament this week, the need for a fairer tax system is growing.

The clamour for the expansion of the GST is at fever pitch here in Australia. What are the motivations behind this?

Gerry Harvey is great media talent. When I first became interested in online retail, I almost immediately became interested in Gerry.

As far back as 2000, Gerry told ninemsn on a live chat forum “that most of the online business will be conducted by traditional retailers and that over 90% of the e-retailers will in fact all go out of business one after the other”.

by Lynn Parramore

Could economists be leaving behind their mechanistic paradise for the messy, unpredictable human world? 

by David Hetherington

A debate over fair distribution of Australia’s mining income gives Labor a platform to reconnect with ordinary voters on national values

Australia’s Gillard government resembles a half-written political drama, but the most creative scriptwriter would struggle to pack in the twists and turns that have marked its first 18 months in office.

by Thorben Albrecht 

Yet again banks have to be rescued because financial markets have gone wild. And because still no effective rules and regulations have been introduced to make banks pay for the high risks they are taking. It feels like “Groundhog Day”: Everything starts all over again, nobody seems to remember anything. Has anybody learned anything?

by George Irvin 

“As things stand, the banks are the permanent government of the country, whichever party is in power.” (Lord Skidelsky, House of Lords, Hansard Citation, 31 March 2011, c1359)

Everybody agrees that the next financial crisis is about to hit us …. bringing another economic crisis in its wake. The general view is that if we were able to prevent meltdown in 2008 by throwing money at the banks, this time the money will be more difficult to find. Unlike the last time, the OECD economies are stagnating, unemployment is high and there’s already much public anger about cuts, joblessness and bankers’ bonuses. ^[1]

Perhaps we should remember that in 2009, neo-liberalism was pronounced dead and buried. It was thought that a new, more thoughtful era was being born. It most certainly didn’t happen. Instead, European countries became more narrowly nationalistic and xenophobic, while the US gave the world the Tea Party. So there is good reason to believe that, as in the 1930s, economic crisis may strengthen the right more than the left. That’s one reason that progressives need to sloganise less (eg, it’s all due to greedy bankers) and think more about underlying causes.

by Douglas J. Elliott

Financial markets and the governments of advanced economies around the world are inextricably tied together in an unbreakable marriage. The two sides need each other. Governments borrow huge sums of money and, for its part, the financial system requires a large base of safe, liquid assets to function efficiently. In some times and places, however, that marriage is very troubled. Right now, the Eurozone is a prime example. The financial markets do not seem to understand or trust the governments and those sentiments are returned by many policymakers, including key ones.

by Bob Carr

It passed and it will pass the Senate.

Whyalla won’t become a ghost town and the price of Corn Flakes will not spike.Australiawill have a carbon trading scheme and the media can interrogate Abbott about how he will repeal it, forgo the revenue and struggle with a budget black-hole, and what else he will do in government.