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Articles by Paul Tilley
The Role of Comprehensiveness in Tax Policy Design
In a paper marking the 50th anniversary of the seminal 1975 Asprey Tax Review, I asked the question whether Haig-Simons style comprehensiveness was still relevant to tax reform in Australia, or whether developments in optimal tax theory had qualified its role. The early 20th-century work of Haig and Simons on an income tax approach, alongside Fisher, Kaldor and Meade on an expenditure tax approach, established comprehensiveness as a cornerstone of tax policy design.
TTPI Working Papers
Is Haig-Simons Still Relevant to Tax Reform in Australia? Author: Paul Tilley 2025 marks 50 years since Australia’s seminal Asprey review, the 1975 Taxation Review Committee. The Australian tax system was in poor shape and the Asprey report provided a blueprint for reform, seeking an application of the Haig-Simons comprehensive income model. Consistent with other tax reviews internationally, it recommended broadening of tax bases and lowering of tax rates.
TTPI Working Papers
Progressivity of Individuals Income Tax in Australia: Long-term Trends Author: Paul Tilley The progressivity of a tax can be measured in various ways. This paper surveys the main methods used previously and corresponding estimates for the progressivity of Australia’s IIT.
Negative gearing: is it a tax concession?
This article was provided by a third-party and the opinions expressed here are the author’s. Morningstar values diversity of thought and publishes a broad range of viewpoints. Negative gearing is a phrase used in Australian tax policy debates regarding rental property investments.
What you need to know about retirement village contracts
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War Plan T-Shirt
As usual the pupils left the ordering of their team T-shirts until the last minute. Delivered in 3 days. read more
TTPI Policy Brief: Negative Gearing
Negative gearing: Is it a tax concession? Author: Paul Tilley Negative gearing is a phrase used in Australian tax policy debates, typically in regard to rental property investments. It is claimed to be a tax concession that an investor receives a tax deduction for interest expenses that contribute to a current loss on a rental property investment, and can combine that with wage income for tax purposes.
The mixed fortunes of tax reform in Australia, part 2
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How AI will transform the real estate sector
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History isn't on the side of the Magnificent Seven
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TTPI Working Paper: History of Tax Theory and Reform Concepts
Author: Paul Tilley (Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute) Tax is a fascinating policy space that brings together a mix of economic, social, legal, accounting and administrative policy issues, heavily overlaid with the political process. It is also contentious. A country’s tax system establishes how the burden of funding government services is shared in a community and changes to that are transparent. There is a lot at stake.
Out in the cold: Treasury’s losing policy influence over the 20-teens prime ministers
Premium Insights and analysis Adobe Stock The reasons for Treasury’s waxing and waning influence on public policy are embedded in the nature of the relationship between the public service and the government of the day — in the fundamentals of the Westminster system in Australia, writes Paul Tilley. From its bookkeeper beginnings at federation, Treasury developed first as an administrator and budget manager then as an economic policy adviser after WWII.
The Innocent Reader
Literary Studies Reviewed by Susan Sheridan • The Innocent Reader: Reflections on reading and writing by Debra Adelaide Picador, $29.99 pb, 272 pp, 9781760784355 Wild About Books: Essays on books and writing by Michael Wilding Australian Scholarly Publishing, $39.95 pb, 202 pp, 9781925801989 Literary Studies Reviewed by Susan Sheridan • The Innocent Reader, Debra Adelaide’s collection of essays reflecting on the value of reading and the writing life, also works as a memoir.
The Truth (Palace Films)
For much of his working life, Hirokazu Kore-eda has been preoccupied with the question of what makes a family a family. Following on from the critically acclaimed Shoplifters (2018), which received the Palme d’Or at Cannes, The Truth continues to explore the idea of family, the roles we assume, the parts we play, and, above all, the lies we tell. It also interrogates our attachment to the idea of truth, something which for Kore-eda we may never, as humans, reach.
Maybe the Horse Will Talk
Fiction Reviewed by Chris Flynn • Maybe the Horse Will Talk by Elliot Perlman Vintage, $32.99 pb, 384pp, 9780143781493 Fiction Reviewed by Chris Flynn • Elliot Perlman’s fourth novel is tentatively billed as a corporate satire and has a striking opening line: ‘I am absolutely terrified of losing a job I absolutely hate.’ The man in this all-too-familiar predicament is Stephen Maserov, a former English teacher turned lawyer.
Emily Gallagher reviews 'My Father’s Shadow' by Jannali Jones, 'This Is How We Change the Ending' by Vikki Wakefield, 'It Sounded Better in My Head' by Nina Kenwood, and 'The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling' by Wai Chim
Fiction Reviewed by Emily Gallagher • Fiction Reviewed by Emily Gallagher • A whistleblower’s child hides from a drug ring in the Blue Mountains. A sixteen-year-old rolls through life like an armadillo. A Melbourne high-school graduate wrestles with her insecurities. The daughter of a Chinese restaurateur juggles her responsibility to care for her siblings as her mother’s health deteriorates. Four lives, four fragile families, and four exquisite books.
'Putting the terror in extraterritoriality' by Christina Twomey
Poem Poem I am from a very large island, a continent in fact. Yet smaller islands have meant more to me – trips to Bribie Island with my grandmother to drink shandies and eat crab sandwiches; two years living in an expatriate Australian community on the Malaysian island of Penang; an object lesson in the power of oceans while visiting American Samoa, when my then boyfriend and I were carried by the tide beyond the coral reef we were exploring with snorkels.
Changing Fortunes: A history of the Australian treasury
History Reviewed by Geoffrey Blainey • Changing Fortunes: A history of the Australian treasury by Paul Tilley Melbourne University Press, $44.99 pb, 544 pp, 9780522873887 History Reviewed by Geoffrey Blainey • Paul Tilley classes the Treasury, now housed in Canberra, as ‘one of Australia’s great enduring institutions’. It began humbly in 1901, in a smallish stone building that still stands at the corner of Collins and Spring Streets in Melbourne.
Ducks, Newburyport
Lucy Ellmann’s ambitious seventh novel stages the workings of a mind as it digests – or fails to digest – life-altering experiences. Ducks, Newburyport is, for the most part, the ruminating inner monologue of a bewildered and frightened woman. It spans a thousand mostly artful pages and is an undeniably impressive accomplishment.
'The Resident', a new poem by Michael Hofmann
Poem Poem We have the White Louse. His name is Donal Dump. He is the Resident, and he heads the Dump maladministration, squillionaires and a sprain-surgeon, a Cabinet of all the talons. They call him a racial spigot. He sees it as he calls it, which makes him spigot. He squitters Twitter on the shitter, and we titter after. He only squeaks for us. He is our mouth-squeeze. He has a background in constriction. Bill the Wall! Bill the Wall! He owes the Dump Hotel, wright here in DeCease.
2014 was a particularly difficult year for the Australian Treasury. The ramifications for the agency were profound - it traded off its ability to influence | The Mandarin
Premium Insights and Analysis The Australian Treasury Changing Fortunes: A History of the Australian Treasury is being published by Melbourne University Press. Paul Tilley tracks how Treasury’s role has evolved over its history, from the government’s bookkeeper at Federation to the economic policy agency of today.
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