The focus of this course is the concept of taxation as a process of redistribution of income and wealth. Learners will investigate the collection and allocation of taxes in Australia, and reflect on their attitude toward different forms of taxation.
The course
Objectives
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- Recall the three levels of government responsible for tax revenue in Australia
- Match types of tax revenue spending according to the level of government responsible
- Calculate personal income tax
- Compare and contrast two types of personal income tax systems
- Justify their position regarding Australia’s GST
- Explain the purpose of taxation
- Label specific uses of taxation in Australia
- Recall the correct rate of GST in Australia
- Classify Australia’s personal income tax system
Structure
This course consists of five key areas:
- A brief history of tax in Australia
- Levels of government responsible for taxation
- What the levels of government do with ‘tax money’
- Personal income tax
- Goods and services tax
We start (briefly) back with the convicts and then rapidly move to the present day, gradually working our way down from the ‘big picture’ of tax in Australia to focus on the two taxes that most commonly affect everyday Australians – personal income tax and GST.
Completing the course
Self-guided learning
This learning is self-guided. What this means for you as a learner is that you have more choice, but greater responsibility. Self-guided means you set the pace and choose how and when to complete readings, videos and activities. Self-guided also means you are responsible for checking your answers against our model answers or feedback.
Don’t forget, you probably also know some people around you, your family, friends, and work colleagues, that might be able to help.
We’d love to acknowledge your learning through a badge. So if you’d like to get a badge, here’s what you need to do:
- View every page of this course
- Complete every activity
- Complete the course survey
- Achieve 100% on the final quiz
Once you’ve done this, your badge will appear on the overview page for this course.
Click on the ‘Contents’ link when you are ready to begin.
Standards (for educators)
The content and tasks in this course have been aligned to the following Australian Curriculum elements:
- Consumer and financial literacy – use critical thinking and problem-solving skills to make informed consumer and financial decisions
- Competence – the application of consumer and financial knowledge and skills in a range of changing contexts
- General Capabilities
- Critical and creative thinking
- Imagine, generate, develop and critically evaluate ideas (Technologies)
- Generate and evaluate knowledge, ideas and possibilities, and use them when seeking solutions (Mathematics)
- Critical and creative thinking
- Economics and Business (K & U) – The ways that governments manage economic performance to improve living standards (ACHEK052)
- Elaboration: Identifying examples of government intervention that aim to redistribute income and goods and services such as health care and education
- Ancient History (Economic activities) – Economic exchange for example tribute, taxation and coinage (ACHAH114)