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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2025
The period of the Hawke Labor Governments has been one of considerable economic change. That change reflects two basic and interrelated factors. First, capital accumulation itself is a continually revolutionising process. Competition forces capitalists to search for new and cheaper ways of producing their products in order to gain an advantage over their rivals. Secondly, the international economic system has been in crisis since the mid-1970s. That crisis can be seen in Australia in the tendency of the rate of profit to decline over the last twenty years or so. The strategy underpinning the Hawke Government's actions, and this is as true of the taxation field as any other area, has been to adopt measures that will facilitate capital accumulation and improve profit rates for Australian based capitalists. This article will examine how some of the tax law changes that have been made have been affected by this strategy, in particular the internationalisation of the Australian economy. In the first place however, these changes have to be seen as part of the more general process of change itself.
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2 The forces of production are the instruments used to produce goods and the people with the skills necessary to use those instruments. In crude terms the forces of production denote the level of productivity of society.
3 The relations of production are the actual relationships people enter into with other people and machines in the production process.
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18 McKinsey and Co, Report to the Australian Taxation Office S (Canbem, 1990).
19 By “productive investment” I mean investment in real wealth producing sectors of the economy such as manufacturing, rather than in speculative endeavours such as real estate.
20 Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Division 18 Part ill.
21 Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 ss 23AH, 23AI and 23AJ.
22 Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Part X.
23 Socialist, August 1990,5.
24 Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Part IDA.
25 Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Part IlIAA.
26 H Reps Deb 1987, Vol 154, 1945 (2 April 1987).
27 Id.
28 Id.
29 Draft White Paper, supra n 13, 18.
30 Id.
31 Id.
32 Id.
33 Ibid 29.
34 Ibid 19.
35 Id.
36 Id.
37 1990-91 Budget Paper No 1 (1990) paragraph 4.47, Appendix B Revenue Statistics 1980-81 to 1990-91, Table B.I, Commonwealth Government Budget Revenue.
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42 Id.
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57 See for example Mullens v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1976) 76 ATC 4288, Slutzkin v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1977) 77 ATC 4076 and Cridland v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1977) 77 ATC 4538.
58 For a fuller explanation of this point see supra n 42.
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