The Art of Tax Reform – NSW Government

A New Approach (ANA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the NSW Government’s Summit, The Art of Tax Reform: Unlocking opportunities to improve taxation for Australian creative industries.

ANA believes that there are important opportunities to use the tax system to better support the cultural and creative industries, not just in NSW but throughout Australia. Drawing on our research, our response to The Art of Tax Reform Discussion Paper highlights how tax reforms can provide a unique opportunity for all levels of government to enable and realise arts and culture policy ambitions.

The outcomes that proposed tax reforms are trying to achieve should reflect the outcomes of existing cultural policies across all three levels of government in Australia.

ANA’s recently published Position Paper, Imagine 2035, includes an indicative ‘Strategy on a Page’ with a vision, principles, priorities, outcomes and measurement for the arts and culture system that reflects common priorities from current cultural policies and federal, state and local government levels. This may be a useful starting point in working to ensure a sense of policy coherence and co-ordination across jurisdictions.

When considering what problems should be addressed, and the principles that should guide tax reform for the cultural and creative industries, it is important to be clear that tax reform is one of the enablers uniquely available to governments to achieve the outcomes that are common to the arts and culture policies across all levels of Australian government. Tax reform is not an end in itself. Rather, it is one of many ways to see government arts and culture policy ambitions realised.