Katreena Doherty rounds up the latest thinking on tax from progressive think tanks in the US and UK.

The need for tax-funded services and payments is rising, writes Eva Cox, but public support for increased taxation can only be sustained if we shift the focus of the social security system.

Are we asking our tax and transfer systems to do too much? Ian McAuley believes we have been trying to use transfer payments to compensate for our economy's inability to provide enough well-paying jobs - a strategy that can only last so long.

Labor's proposed changes to superannuation are a small step in the right direction, explains CPD fellow Ben Spies-Butcher.

CPD fellow Fred Argy, author of 'Australia's Fiscal Striaghtjacket', discussed the downside of tax cuts on ABC Radio, November 15.

As reported in The Age and in New Matilda, analysis by CPD fellow Ian McAuley demonstrates that the tax cuts announced by the Coalition would probably have no greater effect than indexing current tax rates to inflation. Click here for links and source data.

Macgregor Duncan, Andrew Leigh and David Madden call for the reintroduction of an inheritance tax. They argue that an inheritance tax on the super-wealthy would be consistent with the Australian values of ‘egalitarianism’ and a ‘fair go’ and would represent a more efficient way of raising revenue than income or sales tax. In addition to the modest revenue raised from the proposal, the tax would establish incentives for wealthy Australians to increase their currently-low charitable giving