Tax System Reform in Korea and Australia Conference (14-15 March 2005)

The conference was a great success, bringing together leading Korean academics in the field of taxation and four staff from Atax (Binh Tran-Nam, Neil Warren, Matthew Wallace and Nolan Sharkey) to discuss tax reform issues in Korea and Australia. It was funded by a grant from the Australia-Korea Foundation and organised by the Korea Institute of Public Finance (KIPF) in Seoul.

The visit to Korea began with a day long conference at KIPF which saw a free interchange of ideas and focused on the differing experiences with tax reform in Australia and Korea over recent years. The interchange also served to highlight the participants understanding of the pressures likely to confront the Australian and Korean tax systems in the coming years. The similarities in experience were clear as were the differences and potential lessons each country could learn from the experiences of the other.

The KIPF conference was followed by a day long visit to the Korean National Tax Service where Atax staff participated in a workshop on the proposed Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in Korea. The focus of this session was on the experience in other countries with EITC, specially Australia, and the lessons that could be learnt by Korea when designing and implementing such a regime.