A tale as old as our tax law

In an increasingly globalised and digitalised world, the implications for individual taxation are continuously being challenged. In this context, a critical concern is whether Australia’s individual tax residence rules, developed in the 1930s and robustly grounded in personal attachment to a country, may misalign in an increasingly mobile and ‘borderless’ world. This matter highlights a significant gap in knowledge, which this research aims to identify and address, with a particular focus on reform in Australia. This issue is timely, salient and significant given that Australia’s individual tax residence rules have recently been the subject of proposed reform and coincides with an era of accelerated growth in digital nomadism and remote working arrangements. This research will employ a reform-oriented and doctrinal approach for the purpose of generating a platform of alternative measures of reform to Australia’s individual tax residence rules, optimal for an international tax climate in the 21st century.