Grattan Institute and the State Library of Queensland are proud to announce their second State of Affairs event in Brisbane.

Few people like talking about tax. Even fewer like paying it. But taxes are what we pay for civilised society – although we haven’t been paying as much tax as Australian governments have been spending. And how we pay tax makes a big difference to our prosperity.

This year, tax has been constantly in the news: the Commonwealth crafting a White Paper on tax; groups lining up to criticise superannuation and negative gearing tax breaks; State governments urging GST changes to fund increasing health costs; and Grattan Institute suggesting changes to property taxes and stamp duties. PwC has made substantial contributions explaining the need for tax reform, the principles for better taxation, and laying out the options.

Tax might sound technical, but it affects everyone’s hip pocket directly, and how our society works. This State of Affairs event discussed the key questions in Australian tax reform, and show how they raise fundamental issues about what sort of society we want to be.

Speakers

John Daley is the CEO at Grattan Institute, and is one of Australia’s leading public policy thinkers with 25 years experience in the public, private and university sectors. He has worked for ANZ and McKinsey in a career that also includes expertise in law, finance, education, and workers compensation. He is the lead author of a number of Grattan Institute publications that examine tax policy, including Game-changersBalancing Budgets and Property Taxes

Sarah Amos is an Associate Director in PwC’s Economics and Policy practice. She is a lead author of PwC’s Protecting our prosperity series, which includes two publications – How do we fix a tax system? and Why we need to talk about tax. Sarah also played a significant role in the development of PwC’s submission to the Australian Government’s Tax Discussion Paper, Re: Think, Better tax system, Better Australia. Sarah is an economist and public policy specialist with over 12 years of commercial and government experience. Her experience includes public sector reform, funding model design and economic analysis. Prior to joining PwC in 2007, Sarah worked at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the then Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources in various economic policy roles.

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