The team comprises senior personnel from Treasury, the ATO and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. Consultation Consultation is a key feature of the project's methodology. A TLIP Consultative Committee, comprising representatives of business, the community and tax professionals, has a high degree of technical competency and meets regularly to review and recommend improvements to the project team's work. The community is involved through seminars and discussion groups on specific legislation issues. Comments are sought by the project team in relation to exposure drafts of proposed legislation.
Consultation is a long process, but it is invaluable.
Through it, the project team better understands the difficulties faced by tax practitioners and the community in interpreting and applying the income tax legislation. The team can then minimise these practical problems when making its rewrite. The quality of rewrites is also enhanced through community feedback, which enables an easier legislative passage. The project's terms of reference in rewriting the taxation law are to maintain the taxation policy and not to change the law. Accordingly, the project team is not examining ways to introduce new taxes or change old ones.