Senate Economics Legislation Committee (part 2 of 2)
6 November 2026
Contents updated on 6 Nov 2026
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Senate Economics Legislation Committee Parliament of Australia
Follow its sittings00:00 - 00:20
Speaker 5
I just want to start by reading out a quote from a US tax expert David Weisbach, I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but it's out of Associate Professor James's submission, and is a bit of a cracker in my view. So here's the quote. "Tax planning, all tax planning, produces nothing of value.
00:20 - 00:41
Speaker 6
Nothing is gained by finding new ways to turn ordinary income into capital gain, push a gain offshore, or to generate losses. Tax planning is actually far worse than that. It is almost always positively bad for society, it is worse than worthless." Have you got a reflection on that?
00:41 - 01:27
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's an interesting quote, and sort of thinking like an economist, what we do is we pay some of the smartest people out of uni, we pay them very big salaries not to add to Australia, but basically to work out how to funnel rich people's income through loopholes and minimize their tax. Now, at best that has no value at all to society, but you know, if you want to look at it in a society and overall in a productivity way, we're taking people who could be super product productive, who are super smart in other areas, and we're putting them in this role where they're not adding to the productivity of Australia. So, yes, it has a double whammy.
01:27 - 01:58
Speaker 4
Thank you. If you've been watching these hearings, or any of them, my next bunch of questions will come as no surprise to you, but I just want to ask about the fact that discretionary trusts will be able to donate to non-DGR charities and receive a tax benefit for that, which is not available to ordinary PRG PAYG workers, and ask you whether you think that's something that is satisfactory, or ought be addressed?
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