Tax Literacy Tools for the Community and Welfare Sector

A free event for representatives of the community and welfare sectors

The Community Tax Project seeks to build capacity within and between the academic and community/welfare sectors to better advocate on tax system design and reform so that taxation is better viewed, valued and used as both a means to sustainably fund essential social services and improve economic distribution in support of social equity.

In support of this end, the Community Tax Project will run a tax literacy workshop to support advocates working in the community and welfare sectors.

The workshop will feature discussions on: alternative framings to discuss tax and justice beyond economics (presented by Associate Professor Dan Halliday (Philosophy, University of Melbourne); a summary of the major trends and economic debates on tax policy and reform (presented by Professor John Quiggin (University of Queensland)); the benchmark measures used to compare the main tax bases of income, consumption and wealth (presented by Professor Miranda Stewart (Melbourne Law School); and the methods and assumptions that inform modelling in support of tax proposals (TBC).

This event is free of charge to representatives of the community and welfare sectors but attendees must register in advance. Lunch is included.

This event is hosted by the Tax Law and Policy Program of the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute.

Presenters

Daniel Halliday

Associate Professor Daniel Halliday works mainly on topics at the intersection of political philosophy and economics, with a special focus on labour markets, education, taxation, and inequality. In addition to various academic articles on these topics, he is the author of The Inheritance of Wealth: Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath, published by Oxford University Press (2018), and is co-author (with John Thrasher) of The Ethics of Capitalism, also by Oxford University Press (2020). He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University, after which he took up his current post, teaching philosophy at the University of Melbourne.

John Quiggin

Professor John Quiggin is a VC Senior Fellow in Economics at the University of Queensland. He is prominent both as a research economist and as a commentator on Australian economic policy. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and many other learned societies and institutions. He has produced over 1500 publications, including six books and over 200 refereed journal articles, in fields including decision theory, environmental economics, production economics, and the theory of economic growth. He has also written on policy topics including climate change, micro-economic reform, privatisation, employment policy and the management of the Murray-Darling river system. His latest book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work so Well and Why they can Fail so Badly, was released in 2019 by Princeton University Press.

John will present online.

Miranda Stewart

Professor Miranda Stewart is Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne Law School where she is Director of the Tax Group and is a Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. Miranda was the inaugural Director of the Institute from 2014 to 2017. Miranda has more than 25 years research, practical and leadership experience in tax law and policy in academia, government and the private sector. Miranda engages in research, policy advice and teaching across a wide range of topics including taxation of large and small business entities, not-for-profits and individuals; international taxation and the role of tax in development; reform processes and budget institutions; and gender equality in tax and transfer systems. Miranda has an enduring interest in the resilience, legitimacy and fairness of tax systems to support good government.

Kathryn James

Dr Kathryn James teaches and researches in taxation law and policy with specific expertise in the value added tax (VAT) or goods and services tax (GST). Her research focuses on how ostensibly technical questions of taxation impact upon distributive justice.