Slashing the Tax Act

28 November 2005

The Federal Government's plan to cut tax law by close to 30 percent is based on recommendations of the Board of Taxation, which engaged Atax to review the tax legislation.

A team from Atax, led by Bob Deutsch and including Maurice Cashmere, Garry Payne, John Raneri and Kalmen Datt, examined the provisions of the 1936 and 1997 Income tax Assessment Acts and made recommendations to the Board in October 2005, identifying the inoperative provisions of the two Income tax Assessment Acts.

The work was very large in scope, entailing the examination of identified provisions in the 1936 and the 1997 Acts, and Transitional Provisions Acts up to and including Act No 20 of 2004.

This analysis was accompanied by a software system that provided a checking process for all references. The project took the five taxation and legal experts from Atax six months to complete. The result of this work was the recommendation to repeal a significant number of pages of provisions in the 1936 and 1997 Acts.

A draft Bill is expected for release early next year.

The full story is on the Atax website.