Tax officer 2030 : the exercise of discretion and artificial intelligence
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ejournal of Tax Research Vol. 20, no. 1 (2022), p. 72-100
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- Description: This article examines the principles underpinning effective decision-making and the exercise of discretion in Australian taxation law in the context of the development of digital government and the increasing use of artificial intelligence. The article proposes a framework for the exercise of discretion by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in decision-making involving expert systems and emerging supervised machine learning and deep learning, consistent with administrative law. The framework is of wider relevance to public sector delegated decision-making and it draws on relevant principles and case law. It identifies the capabilities the ATO requires to implement this framework and maintain public trust in the new systems.
Digital tax administration: transforming the workforce to deliver
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: eJournal of Tax Research Vol. 18, no. 2 (2020), p. 353-381
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- Description: This article provides the global context for digital tax administration and the radical change to the administration workforce. It examines the knowledge, skills, and capabilities to implement digital taxation and identifies the importance of a holistic workforce strategy. The article examines the elements of a data-driven human resource management strategy required to shape and develop an appropriate workforce. It shows that this ranges from revision of classification and role definition to comprehensive training. The article identifies the characteristics of an effective training system and the range of appropriate delivery methods to support strategy implementation. The article demonstrates that, as all tax administrations transform, the effectiveness of that transformation to digital delivery depends on developing a workforce with the right skillset. It shows that despite the competition for skills, a carefully planned and implemented strategy can build depth of capability appropriate to the jurisdiction and its state of development. © 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Taxpayer rights and protections in a digital global environment
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Ethics and Taxation p. 251-294
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- Description: This chapter explores the impact on taxpayer rights of digital developments in electronics and systems, artificial intelligence, and security.Using an integrated rights framework comprising principles of tax administration and compliance, together with legal rights, it sets out the challenges and opportunities offered by digital disruption. It addresses issues such as proportionality, discrimination, equity and fairness, transparency and bias in legal and administrative decision-making, security, privacy and confidentiality. The chapter takes a global and comparative perspective in addressing significant legal issues that require detailed research and debate. It emphasises the opportunities for government service obligations to taxpayers, using artificial intelligence and secure systems, to provide advanced assistance to taxpayers and businesses and boost economic growth and trade. The chapter concludes that the opportunities are available to enable global implementation of an integrated rights framework to protect taxpayers even more effectively through digital disruption. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020.
Timeless principles of taxpayer protection: how they adapt to digital disruption
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: eJournal of Tax Research Vol. 16, no. 3 (2019), p. 679-713
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- Description: Digital transformation will pose growing challenges to tax revenues and systems of taxation that were designed for another century. The tax rules may hasten slowly, but the record of response to the challenges of electronic commerce, and of base erosion and profit shifting, shows that tax administration is more adaptable. This article identifies the detailed nature of technological changes in electronics and systems; big data, automation and artificial intelligence; and security, including blockchain; as those changes affect tax administration. It highlights the critical taxpayer rights issues and applies accepted taxpayer rights frameworks. The article concludes that taxpayer rights principles are both highly adaptable to a digital world, and provide useful guidance to where urgent action and further research are required. © 2019 UNSW Business School™.
Being a global leader : challenges of internationalisation
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Encounters with Constitutional interpretation and legal education: Essays in honour of Michael Coper p. 167-173
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How universities can make graduates employable with connections to industry
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Electronic article , Journal article
- Relation: Open Access
- Relation: Published: February 27, 2018
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Playing chess with taxpayers : the conundrum of “a permanent place of abode” and the Legislative Residence Tests for individuals in Australia and New Zealand
- Authors: Alley, Clinton , Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: New Zealand Journal of Taxation Law and Policy Vol. , no. 23 (2017), p. 312-333
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- Description: Australia’s legislative definition of tax residence has remained unchanged since 1936. New Zealand amended its legislative definition in 1988. This article examines specifically the concept of the tax residence of individuals in the 21st century in light of Interpretation Statement IS16/03, a comprehensive guideline issued by New Zealand’s Inland Revenue on 20 September 2016. This interpretation statement demonstrates New Zealand’s increased objectivity in its definition. In addition, this article answers the question of whether a relatively minor change similar to that in New Zealand would be possible in Australia for the benefit of both the revenue and taxpayers. In New Zealand, the permanent place of abode test was amended in 1988 so that an individual will be resident, despite any other provision, if the individual has “a permanent place of abode in New Zealand, whether or not they have a permanent place of abode outside New Zealand”. This amendment focused the test on the individual’s connections with New Zealand, rather than whether the individual had closer connections with New Zealand or another country. This made it more difficult to lose New Zealand residence.48 This emphasis was reinforced by extending the number of days test to be a non-resident from 183 to 325 days. Given that the Australian superannuation test should be reviewed, particularly in light of potential discrimination, it would be timely to simplify the Australian definition of residence for individuals using the New Zealand model. The advantage of using the New Zealand model is also that most of the case law applicable in Australia would remain relevant. A changed definition would have less impact than many definitions rewritten as part of the Australian 1997 Income Tax Assessment Act. The New Zealand public service definition provides a simple and modern approach to ensuring that public servants working overseas are treated as residents. The different components of the New Zealand definition, if applied in Australia, would retain the substance and intention of the Australian definition, albeit that in making the rules more objective, they would support the Australian Taxation Office in identifying and acting to prevent tax avoidance. They would modernise the law to suit a world in which individuals are far more mobile. A clearly objective standard, moderated by the opportunity for taxpayers to show that their circumstances support a decision by the Commissioner not to treat them as resident, balances the principles of certainty and fairness. The balance will never be perfect. However, the overall effect would not only make the law simpler, clearer and more efficient but, based on the cases discussed above, fairer for taxpayers.
Preparing law graduates for a globalised world
- Authors: Squelch, Joan , Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Law Teacher Vol. 51, no. 1 (2017), p. 2-16
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- Description: In this article it is argued that law graduates need to be prepared for working in a global legal context. Whether working in global law firms or small, local non-global law firms, law graduates need to have the knowledge, skills and attributes that will better equip them to work within and across multiple, international legal jurisdictions. The purpose of the article is twofold: first, to report on and disseminate research on a collaborative project on internationalising the Australian law curriculum aimed at preparing law graduates for global legal practice, of which the authors were the lead researchers; and second, to discuss and demonstrate the practical application of the proposed curriculum framework to the teaching of Constitutional Law. © 2015 The Association of Law Teachers.
The legislative requirements for measuring quality in transnational education : understanding divergence while maintaining standards
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan , Henderson, Fiona , Lim, Choon
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Higher Education Quarterly Vol. 71, no. 4 (2017), p. 338-351
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- Description: Australian universities have been actively engaged in transnational education since the 1990s. The challenges of assuring quality have seen a changing regulatory framework increasingly designed to ensure equivalence of standards wherever a course of study is offered and however it is delivered. Transnational Higher Education has grown significantly and the issues that flow from operating across jurisdictions, cultures and contexts have been addressed primarily by institutions themselves in complying with regulation. This article identifies how the Australian quality agency TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency) has revised its Standards Framework to support divergence appropriate to local culture and context, while assuring quality provision across the student life cycle. It concludes that the maturity of the quality agency may not yet reflect the provision of transnational education in practice. The article identifies a need for significant further research so that theory and practice can reflect opportunities to better serve students in a mature quality environment. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Equivalent or not? : Beyond measuring teaching and learning standards in a transnational education environment
- Authors: Lim, Chooey , Bentley, Duncan , Henderson, Fiona , Pan, Shin , Balakrishnan, Vimala
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Quality Assurance in Education Vol. 24, no. 4 (2016), p. 528-540
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- Description: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine issues academics at importing institutions face while delivering Australian degrees in Malaysia. Transnational higher education (TNE) has been widely researched. However, less widely researched is the area of understanding what academics at the offshore locations need to uphold the required academic standards of their partnered exporting universities. This area warrants close attention if Australian and other transnational education universities are to sustain their growth through a partnership model with offshore academics delivering a portion (often a substantial portion) of the teaching. Design/methodology/approach: Two focus groups were conducted with a mix of long standing and newly recruited Malaysian lecturers who taught into an Australian degree through a partnership arrangement. The semi-structured questions which were used were derived from a preliminary literature review and previous internal institutional reports. Findings: The findings from the focus groups indicate that TNE is largely “Australian-centric” when addressing the standard of academic quality and integrity. The findings pointed not so much to any sustained internationalisation of curriculum or administration or personnel but more as internationalisation as deemed required by the local academic. Originality/value: To a greater extent, the findings highlighted that equivalent student outcomes do not necessarily equate to equivalent learning experiences or teaching workload. In fact, the frustration of the interviewees on the tension to fulfil the home institution curriculum and helping students to “comprehend” an Australian-centric curriculum translates to “additional and unrecognised workload” for the interviewees. © 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Duncan Bentley” is provided in this record**
Taxpayer rights in Australia twenty years after the introduction of the taxpayers' charter
- Authors: Bentley, Duncan
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: eJournal of Tax Research Vol. 14, no. 2 (2016), p. 291-318
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- Description: Twenty years after the introduction of the Australian Taxpayers' Charter this article reviews its purpose, its development and its sufficiency to meet future challenges. It outlines, in the context of developments in compliance theory, the Charter's important role in developing trust between taxpayers and the Australian Taxation Office. However, the article outlines future challenges and identifies the growing importance of research into a balanced legal and compliance framework. The article sets out a legal rights pyramid to balance the compliance pyramid and argues that it creates stability for the system and makes a trust based compliance environment more likely. © 2016 AgBioForum. All rights reserved.