The Annual States' Taxation Conference remains the only national conference covering all state and territory taxes in one technical program. With presenters from both the private and government sectors, the program was pitched at a level that provides the general practitioner with a good understanding of current issues, with more technical topics covered in depth for the tax specialists.
Considerable effort was made to present topics with content covering the legislation of all the states and territories. These included the Commissioners' audit and investigative powers, exemptions and concessions in landholder duty, issues affecting contracts, the judicial and administrative approach to aggregation, public takeovers, and issues arising under the various self-assessment regimes. There was the usual update on significant cases will be followed by an expert panel discussion drawing out the practical implications from the key cases. Payroll tax topics were also extensive, including exemptions, rebates and concessions, the employment agency provisions, and harmonisation from a practitioner's perspectives.