NATIONAL TAX CLINIC PROGRAM IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA: A PROJECT MODEL INNOVATION
INDRA ABEYSEKERA
Abstract
This paper provides an overview of the activities undertaken by the Charles Darwin University Tax Clinic (‘CDU Tax Clinic’) —located in Australia’s Northern Territory —as part of the inaugural National Tax Clinic Program conducted over the course of 2019. The CDU Tax Clinic was designed as a teaching clinic in order to assist unrepresented taxpayers with their taxation affairs while offering students real-world, client-based and practical experience. The project design considered the population distribution of the Northern Territory and ways of reaching unrepresented taxpayers located in three major towns, adopting an intrapreneurial and client-centred approach with the CDU Tax Clinic open seven days per week. In the period from late June 2019 to the end of October 2019, the CDU Tax Clinic served 266 clients in various ways, with six students undertaking work experience. The average time spent with a client was approximately two and a half hours. This paper provides a roadmap to maximising outreach to clients in a thinly populated geography. The findings are analysed in terms of clients who visited the CDU Tax Clinic and are generalisable to such populations. This paper shows the impact of a social project assisting socially disadvantaged groups, and a university engaging with the community through a professor and students.