Knowledge@ASB - Tax Reform: Picking Up Pace for Bringing on Henry

It's a year since the release of the report on Australia's Future Tax System Review, headed by recently retired Treasury chief Ken Henry. The review was just the start of the Labor Party fulfilling its election promise of a "root and branch" overhaul of taxation. But one year on, not many of the review's 138 recommendations – including a resources rent tax, a 5% cut in company tax and a leap in the personal tax threshold – have been enacted. However, review panel member, John Piggott, an economics professor at the Australian School of Business, says there are positive early signs of change, and several decades for reform.