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What is tax?Tax is the money paid by individuals and businesses to government. Australia has 3 reasons for taxation. The first and most important is to raise the money the government needs to pay for goods and services needed by the community such as health, education, roads and defence. The second purpose of taxation is to share our wealth through income support for disadvantaged Australians, through such things as the aged pension,…

The data sets below show the amount of particular fuel types produced in Australia over 10 years. The amounts are in megalitres (1 megalitre = 1 million litres). The tables also show the amount of excise the government charges for each megalitre produced (the excise rate). You are going to do some calculations and graphing and draw some conclusions about the amount of excise the government has collected from fuel across the 10-year period.…

Part 1 – What are sin taxes?On the internet, research sin taxes.Why is excise often called a ‘sin tax’?Write a general description of a sin tax. Include some examples.Is a sin tax an Australian thing, or does it also occur in other countries?Find 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages of sin taxes.What’s your opinion of sin taxes – good idea or not? Because? Part 2 – A case study of tobaccoYou are going to investigate the changes in excise on…

Superannuation, or 'super', is money put aside by your employer over your working life for you to live on when you retire from work. Super is important for you, because the more you save, the more money you may have for your retirement. You can only withdraw your super money in certain circumstances – for example, when you reach preservation age and retire or turn 65 years old. However, there are some circumstances where you can access your…

Set up a spreadsheet to calculate the return on investment earned in the super accounts in table 1. Insert all relevant symbols for calculating compound interest as shown below. Remember to copy and paste formulas where appropriate to save time. Information for setting up your spreadsheet on compound interest Compounded annually Principal ($) Interest rate (%) (annually) Time (in years)…

For these tasks you will set up a spreadsheet to investigate the difference making small payments more often makes to your super balance. Task 1 You have been working for 10 years and your super balance has been growing, but you’ve decided to take a year off and travel overseas. You won’t be making any super contributions during that time. However, your super will still be growing because of the interest. Before you go, you have the option…

Compound interest In the classroom, compound interest is usually demonstrated as a sequence from the initial term/balance. If is the constant periodic interest rate, a deposit/initial amount would grow to: A=P(1+r)n where A=new balance P=original balance (Principal) r=annual interest rate (%) n=time in years Annuities The generic term annuity refers to situations involving regular equal payments, and usually simple or compound interest.…

 Contributions to a worker’s superannuation come from 2 sources:There is a component paid by the employer, called the superannuation guarantee, which in 2025-26 is 12% of the employee’s before-tax pay.Workers may also choose to contribute a further regular amount.It’s obvious that if you contribute extra money to your superannuation then you’ll have more when you retire. But how important is the timing? If you can only add extra to your…