This seminar introduces a new model of Australia’s tax and transfer system: Model of the Australian Tax and Transfer System (MATTS). MATTS is a suite of Stata commands that provide researchers with the capability of modelling individual parts of Australia’s tax and transfer system that will be made freely available to anyone with an interest in tax-transfer research. The MATTS suite can be applied to a range of tax-transfer modelling problems and methodologies.

A specific application of MATTS will be presented with the commands used to illustrate how Australia’s tax-transfer system augments the disposable incomes of single income support recipients. The commands will be then be used to explore how tax-transfer policies shape the Effective Marginal Tax Rates faced by low-wage income support recipients. These simple examples illuminate some of the trade-offs involved in the design of means-tested tax-transfer systems.

The seminar will conclude with a summary of the current capabilities of MATTS and a tentative timeline for the public release of MATTS commands.

Further information can be found at his ANU Researcher Profile Page:https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/taylor-mj