Centre for Tax System Integrity

SPREADING THE WORD: CONFERENCES

Third International Conference
RESPONSIVE REGULATION:
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION

24-25 July 2003
Ian Wark Theatre, The Shine Dome, Gordon Street, Canberra

The conference brought together some of the knowledge that CTSI had gained over the previous three years about applying responsive regulation to the area of taxation. Responsive regulation means improving the quality of communication with citizens, providing services to make compliance easier and cheaper, and providing timely and appropriate regulatory signals for what is and is not acceptable. These issues had emerged consistently in CTSI's research and the ATO was already responding to such needs among taxpayers.

Less easy to respond to, but just as important in the long term, is 'making sense of the tax system' for citizens. Increasingly, we are seeing evidence of the tax system 'losing meaning', with the role of taxpayer broadening to include not only 'good citizen' but also 'smart financial planner'. The conference mapped out some of the issues that would be critical to both tax policy and tax administration in the next decade as relevant government departments are called upon to respond to changing social norms and uncertainty about what the tax system stands for. To help better understanding of these changes and how we might respond to them, presenters from CTSI and the ATO were joined by several speakers from overseas.

Conference Program

9.30

Time	Topic	Speaker
Thursday 24 July
9.00	Welcome	Professor John Richards Deputy Vice-Chancellor, ANU
9.05	Opening Address (pdf version)	Ms Jennie Granger 2nd Commissioner, Compliance, Australian Taxation Office
9.20	Introduction	Valerie Braithwaite Director, Centre for Tax System Integrity
Session 1: Tax avoidance as an international game Chair: Valerie Braithwaite
9.30	Greg Rawlings Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Tax System Integrity Aggressive tax planning and games played offshore: tax havens and creative jurisdictionality
10.00	John Braithwaite Law Program and Regulatory Institutions Network, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU Thinking about managing international compliance risks: Rules, principles and meta risk management
10.30	Discussion and questions
11.00	Morning tea
Session 2: The ethics of taxpaying: where have they gone? Chair: Jenny Job, PhD Scholar, CTSI
11.30	Valerie Braithwaite Director, Centre for Tax System Integrity Hope and life for a tax system (Powerpoint presentation available)
12.00	Benno Torgler University of Basel, Switzerland Tax morale in Latin America (pdf version)
12.30	Discussion and questions
1.00	Lunch
Session 3: Aggressive tax planning: managing problems after the horse has bolted Chair: Andrew Stout, Director, CTSI, ATO
2.00	Tina Murphy Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Tax System Integrity Who me? I didn't do anything wrong: Trust, resistance and compliance among tax scheme investors (pdf version)
2.30	Kevin Fitzpatrick First Assistant Commissioner, Aggressive Tax Planning, ATO The ATO's approaches to aggressive tax planning (pdf version)
3.00	Discussion and questions
3.30	Afternoon tea and depart at your convenience
3.45 - 5.00	Workshop: Unlocking the Compliance Model Information sharing on experiences Aimed at people directly involved in implementing the Model
Friday 25 July
9.00	Early morning tea and coffee available
Session 4: Stepping outside the system Chair: Valerie Braithwaite
Eliza Ahmed Research Fellow, Centre for Tax System Integrity When tax offices become collection agencies: at what cost? (Powerpoint presentation)
10.00	Sophie Cartwright PhD scholar, Centre for Tax System Integrity Young people in the field of illegal tobacco (Powerpoint presentation)
10.30	Valerie Braithwaite Director, Centre for Tax System Integrity Discussant on policy implications Questions
11.00	Morning tea
Session 5: Deterrence: effective only when one regulates responsively? Chair: Tina Murphy
11.30	Michael Wenzel Fellow, Centre for Tax System Integrity Interactions between deterrence, norms and ethics This presentation was based largely on 'The social side of sanctions: Personal and social norms as moderators of deterrence', CTSI Working Paper No. 34. (pdf version)
12.00	Lars Feld Philipps-Universitat Marburg, Germany Tax evasion and taxpayers' treatment by tax administrations (pdf version of background paper).
12.30	Discussion and questions
1.00	Lunch
Session 6: Panel Discussion: The future of tax systems in democratic societies Chair: John Braithwaite, Law Program and Regulatory Institutions Network, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU
2.00	Lars Feld Benno Torgler Stephen Bartos, School of Business and Information Management, ANU (pdf version) Each panel member will speak for 10 minutes
2.30	Discussion and questions

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Centre for Tax System Integrity

SPREADING THE WORD: CONFERENCES

Third International ConferenceRESPONSIVE REGULATION: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION

Conference Program

Third International Conference
RESPONSIVE REGULATION:
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION