Jessica Detterer

Research Title: Economic abuse and its intersection with the tax and transfer system.

Supervisor/s Name: Professor Michael Walpole and Associate Professor Ann Kayis-Kumar

Jessica is a PhD candidate at the School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation.

Jessica’s PhD research focuses on the interface between economic abuse and the Australian tax and transfer system. Her research is motivated by reports that victims of economic abuse indicate they have been forced to claim government payments that they were not entitled to.

Using the phenomenological research methodology, Jessica seeks to identify typologies or patterns of economic abuse relating to the tax and transfer system through interviews, reports and/or case studies from institutions that support victim-survivors of economic abuse. Her research aims to understand the impact of these patterns of abuse on victim-survivors, identify options for more effective and/or appropriate proactive and reactive responses to that abuse, and consider whether the law, policy or administrative design could be reformed or amended to better support victim-survivors of economic abuse.