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Directions for Tax Administration: Two Recent Reports

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2025

Ivor Richardson*
Affiliation:
Court of Appeal of New Zealand and Organisational Review of the Inland Revenue Department (1993-1994)

Extract

The effectiveness of the tax system is crucial to the funding of government. The tax administration is given exceptional powers to enable it to enforce tax laws and thus achieve revenue outcomes acceptable to government. The performance of the tax administration affects the efficiency of the national economy. But though it is crucial to the functioning of government and the economy and though it raises major questions as to the application of public law values, tax administration has not been a major field of study for lawyers. However, that may be changing and, co-incidentally, substantial governmental reviews of tax administration in Australia and New Zealand have recently been published. For ease of reference they will be referred to as the Australian Report and the New Zealand Report respectively.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 The Australian National University

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References

1 Commonwealth Parliament Joint Committee of Public Accounts, An Assessment of Tax (Report No326, November 1993); New Zealand, Organisational Review Committee, Organisational Review of the Inland Revenue Department (Report to the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of Finance, March 1994). The New Zealand Report has been approved by the Government and is in the process of implementation. The Australian Government is in the process of implementing some of the recommendations of the Australian Report. A summary of the recommendations of the Australian Report can be found at xxiv to xlii of the Report. For the New Zealand Report the summary recommendations can be found at 11 to22 of the Report.

2 In New Zealand there is both a Commissioner of Inland Revenue under the Inland Revenue Act 1974 and a Chief Executive of the Department of Inland Revenue under the State Sector Act 1988. Currently both roles are performed by the one person.

3 Australian Report, above n 1 at para 3.77.

4 Ibid at para 5.63.

5 One of the recommendations of the Australian Report was to completely re-draft the income tax legisation. Asa consequence, the Tax Law Improvement Project began its three year task of re-writing, re-numbering and re-ordering the legislation in July 1994. One of the fruits of the project has been the Tax Law Improvement (Substantiation) Bill 1994, a redraft of the substantiation provisions. It was introduced into the House of Representatives on 8 December 1994.

6 L M Tan and G Tower, “The Readability of Tax Laws: An Empirical Study in New Zealand” (1992) 9 Australian Tax Forum 355.

7 Tax Simplification Consultative Committee, Final Report (1990).

8 L M Tan and S Tooley, Tax Simplification in New Zealand: A Practitioner’s Perspective (Paper presented at the Sixth Annual Australasian Tax Teachers’ Conference, Sydney, January 1994). An edited version of this paper has appeared, under the title “New Zealand Tax Simplification: Progress to Date” (1994) 48(5) Bulletin for International Fiscal Documentation 236.

9 Australian Report, above n 1 at xviii.

10 Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976, Second Report (P P B31, September 1993) at ii.

11 Ibid at iii.

12 Australian Report, above n 1 at para 5.38.

13 See, for example,v Preston Inland Revenue Commissioner [1985] AC 835 and Matrix Securities Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioner [1994] 1 All ER 769.

14 Brierley Investments Ltd v Bouzaid [1993] 3 NZLR 655.

15 New Zealand Report, above n 1 at 68 and 70-71.

16 Ibid at 68-69 and 70-71.

17 Ibid at 68-69 and 71.

18 Ibid at 124-126.

19 Ibid at 113-116 and 124-125.