Report on the Atax Eighth International Tax Administration Conference, Sydney, 26-28 March 2008

The 8th Tax Administration Conference (Safe Harbours and New Horizons) was held at the Marriott Hotel, Circular Quay, Sydney on 26 – 28 March 2008. Over 140 delegates attended from more than 13 different countries. The conference was opened by David Gonski AC, Chancellor of UNSW and prominent business figure. The Australian and New Zealand Commissioners of Taxation (Michael D'Ascenzo and Bob Russell) featured as keynote speakers, along with the National Taxpayer Advocate from the US Internal Revenue Service (Nina Olson), our own Inspector-General of Taxation (David Vos AM), senior taxation administrators from the OECD in Paris (David Butler and Richard Highfield) and Professor John Hasseldine from the UK. There were 20 or so other speakers in two streams, including a variety of academic, Treasury, revenue authority and professional body speakers from Australia and overseas. The topics ranged across all aspects of tax administration, from "hard core" legal aspects through to the "softer" behavioural considerations involved in tax compliance and related activities. Selected papers will be refereed and published as an edited book in the Tax Administration series by Fiscal Publications later this year.

The conference also saw the launch of Austlii's powerful new tax library, comprising a searchable database including state and federal taxation law and top tax journals, developed in conjunction with Atax (see http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/tax/).

Associate Professor Peter Edmundson from UTS and Philip Lignier from QUT were the joint winners of the Cedric Sandford Award for the best conference paper. Peter wrote about tax evasion and the tort of conspiracy in the light of the UK's Total Network case involving VAT carousel fraud. Philip presented a paper on the managerial benefits of tax compliance in the small business sector. Emeritus Professor Cedric Sandford, who died in 2002, was a very eminent scholar in the field of tax administration, and of tax compliance costs in particular, and a strong supporter of the early Tax Administration conferences. The award is given in his honour at the conference every two years. The two previous winners were Professor Adrian Sawyer from Christchurch University, NZ in 2004 and Dr Kim Bloomquist, Head of the Research Office of the Internal Revenue Service in the USA in 2006. The judging panel this year comprised Professor Rob Woellner (PVC James Cook Uni), Associate Professor Jeff Pope (Curtin University) and Professor Chris Evans (UNSW) as Chair.

Su McCluskey, Executive Director of the Office of Best Practice Regulation in the Department of Finance and Deregulation, and formerly senior revenue official in the ATO and senior policy advisor to various business and professional bodies, provided some entertaining and sometimes painful (for the audience) insights into the integration of tax and farming at the conference dinner held at the MCA. The issue of the correct treatment of bull's sperm under the Tax Value Method remains thankfully unresolved.

Evaluations from delegates suggest all aspects of the conference were a great success, and planning is already underway for the 9th conference in the series, scheduled for 6-8 April 2010 (the week after Easter).

Chris Evans and Michael Walpole (on behalf of the Conference Steering Group)