Personal Accounting

Gareth Hutchens

Little evidence to support corporate tax cut

Gareth Hutchens A popular argument is the idea that our economy will necessarily benefit if the corporate tax rate is cut.

WELL HEELED

Maximise the money in your pocket at tax time

Melissa Browne The end of the financial year is only a few weeks away and the key to getting a better return this year is to do something rather than hope that it happens.

TAX TIME

Tax office takes aim at tradies

John Collett The Australian Tax Office is targeting building and construction workers and sales and marketing managers.

CUT YOUR LOSSES

Realising value from shares that are worthless

Tony McLean If you have shares that are really of little or no value, you may be able to realise a capital loss for tax purposes in 2012-13.

TAX TIME

Dropping the ball now can be costly

Barbara Drury The big challenge facing Australian taxpayers this month is to reduce their tax bill before the end of the financial year without getting the Tax Office umpire offside.

Crackdown on landlords after surge in claims

John Collett The Australian Taxation Office is targeting more than 110,000 rental property owners who have been identified through last year's tax returns as making incorrect claims.

BUDGET SPECIAL

The cuts are now personal

John Collett The 2013-14 federal budget delivered not that much for the personal finances of most people. It mostly deferred or scrapped tax breaks that had been promised, but not yet delivered, and so will...

Taxing 'super' rich a good idea badly handled

Richard Livingston The government has cottoned on to a fair point but they are struggling to articulate it.

Tax word

Mike Bannon In the last 50 years, Australia's best federal treasurers were Paul Keating and Peter Costello, especially for their ground-breaking work in superannuation.

GST overhaul inevitable and desirable, business groups stress

Madeleine Heffernan An overhaul of the goods and services tax is inevitable and might help raise living standards, business groups say.

Henry warning to lift revenue

Clancy Yeates State and federal governments must extract more tax revenue if they are to fund the nation's ballooning infrastructure needs in decades to come, former Treasury secretary Ken Henry says.