Health Policy and the Federal Government

Health Policy and the Federal Government

Watch the video, The U.S. Congress and Health Policy, and answer the following questions:

What role does Congress play in the formulation of health policy?

How does Congress operate?

What are the various steps in legislation?

How does a bill become law?

If you were given the chance to become a Congressman or a Senator, which one would you like to be and why?

Your paper must be three to five double-spaced pages (excluding title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.  Utilize a minimum of two scholarly and/or peer-reviewed sources that were published within the last five years. All sources must be documented in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

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Finalize and submit your Learning Team Presentation.

Finalize and submit your Learning Team Presentation. Make sure that all requirements are met including detailed presenter notes.  In-text references should be included in both the slides and the presenters notes, as well as properly formatted at the end of the presentation.

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Maternal and Child Health (M.C.H.) services are one of the basic services of local public health efforts

Maternal and Child Health (M.C.H.) services are one of the basic services of local public health efforts.  M.C.H. core services include: pre-natal care, post-natal care, neonatal care, and supervision of the health of school children.  Select one of these core services and answer the following questions about the assurance of these public services:

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Describe the key dimensions of an organizational strategy

Describe the key dimensions of an organizational strategy as well as how they would, or would not, be relevant to the "strategic mindset" or the ability to think "strategically" of an organization's management. Do you think these are learned or innate traits? Respond to at least two of your classmates' postings

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Using theories of ethics, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management and ASX P&R

Using theories of ethics, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management and ASX P&R (principles and recommendations) develop a report defending or criticizing (or both) the tax behavior of global corporations such as Google, Microsoft and Apple in Australia.

Use the literature to justify your argument/s.

GLOBAL GIANTS SLIP THROUGH TAX NET

Some companies may pay zero tax. Photo: Lesley Parker

A major challenge facing the Australian Government and governments around the world is how to protect their tax revenue.

One response has been to target people who transfer assets or divert income to tax havens such as the Cayman Islands to avoid paying tax. In Australia, the Tax Office has targeted wealthy individuals with its Operation Wickenby. However, these responses target pickpockets, while bank robbers operate with impunity.

A far bigger challenge to tax revenue is income shifting by multinational corporations such as Apple. These businesses pay virtually no corporate tax, and have been defiant in the face of criticism.

A recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report addressed these issues and came up with an “action plan”, which was endorsed by the finance ministers of the world’s richest nations ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit in September. OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said international tax rules were aimed at ensuring businesses don’t pay taxes in two countries. “This is laudable, but unfortunately these rules are now being abused to permit double non-taxation,” he said.

How do some companies manage to pay little or no tax? It is achieved by artificially structuring transactions so there’s little relation between the economic substance and legal form of the transactions.

Let’s take a simplified example of a company manufacturing devices in China, shipping them directly to Australia and selling them to customers in Sydney. If the transaction were structured in a way reflecting its economic substance, the taxable income would be equivalent to the sale amount received from the customer less the costs of manufacturer and other “real” business expenses.

The sale amount might be $300 a device, with “transfer pricing” rules dictating how much of that is recognized in Australia and China respectively. But, to avoid paying tax, extra “paper” transactions could be recorded. First, the devices would be sold to a company in Ireland before being resold to a company in Australia. Second, the company in Ireland could make “royalty” or “licence” payments to a second company registered in Ireland but resident in a tax haven such as the Cayman Islands. These payments could be $275 a device. Now there’s only $25 in taxable income to be recognized in Australia, China and Ireland.

Most of the income is recognized in the Cayman Islands and tax is avoided. Ireland doesn’t limit payments to the tax-haven company through transfer pricing rules, it allows a company registered in Ireland to be resident for tax purposes in a tax haven and it has a very low corporate tax rate.

Some in Ireland might call this being “tax competitive” and argue that significant employment is created in operating these shell companies. Maintaining the bank robbery analogy, others might call this driving the getaway car.

Why has so little been done? Tax treaties between countries constrain the ability of governments to respond and this has emboldened multinationals. These treaties were intended to provide clarity about where income should be taxed and prevent the taxation of income in more than one country. However, differences in tax laws have been exploited so income is not taxed anywhere.

Governments must act to either modernize the treaties or act unilaterally to ensure income is taxed appropriately. The aim should be to ensure income is recognized on the basis of the economic substance of transactions.

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Financial Plan Excel spreadsheet Design a 3 to 5 year financial plan to implement the goals and objectives

Financial Plan Excel spreadsheet Design a 3 to 5 year financial plan to implement the goals and objectives created in Part II of your strategic plan. The deliverables for the financial plan include a projected budget created in Microsoft® Excel that clarifies and explains the financial plan. Prepare a Projected Budget for your strategic plan in Microsoft Excel (See example in the course materials newsgroup)The projected budget should be a Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet that contains a 3 to 5 year financial projection that includes detailed expenditures, income, contingency, gain or loss, and ROI (if applicable). When preparing a budget, nothing is in stone. Let your spreadsheet work for you. Identify assumptions in your spreadsheet. Use that section to build your formulas. (See example in the course materials newsgroup). If you use your assumptions in your formulas correctly, it allows you to make adjustments should contingencies arise. For example, if you build in 2.5% increase in salaries each you and you don’t perform well and salary projects have to be cut to 2%, you can change the assumption and you spreadsheet will adjust the calculations. If you cannot obtain financial details, the details may be assumed. In the spreadsheet identify the organization’s current business model.

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The Board of Directors of Wesfarmers

1. OVERVIEW

The Board of Directors of Wesfarmers (‘WES’ on the Australian Stock Exchange) has tasked the

Finance Director of the Coles Division of WES with the analysis of an Energy Efficiency related  initiative. The initiative stems from WES’s corporate sustainability principles and the objective to  reduce carbon emissions by direct abatement. Your group is a team of Coles management accountants, assigned to assist the Coles Finance Director (i.e., your CMA Lecturer) by performing the required financial analysis. The initiative is fully outlined in Appendix One of this document.

Your group must submit and present your financial analysis in three formats:

A. Excel – financial modelling

B. Word – written report

C. PowerPoint – for presentation in-class (5 minutes per group).

Extracts from the Excel financial modelling are to be included in your Word report and PowerPoint  presentation.

2. EXCEL

The Finance Director (i.e., your Lecturer) will review your financial modelling. They will need to be  very comfortable with your technical execution. Like many senior managers, (s)he is extremely time  poor and needs to be communicated to very concisely. (S)he needs to quickly understand the design of your models, as well as assumptions and limitations.

You will email your Excel file to your lecturer for review. Here is what the Finance Director will  expect to see:

• The model is clearly structured, with supporting tables in separate tabs that build-up from a  detailed breakdown.

• Input and output tables are clear and separate.

• Tables logically present key components (e.g., costs, benefits, EBIT, assumptions and  parameters).

• The model is materially complete and comprehensive.

• The model is technically correct, e.g., cash flows are on an after-tax basis and treatments are  conventional.

• Excel extracts used in the written report or PowerPoint presentation should be appropriately  formatted, e.g., present figures in $M (e.g., $0.18M for $180,000).

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CMA – GROUP ASSIGNMENT

3. WORD

Remember, the Finance Director is your audience, so focus on the numbers. It should be very clear what the document is about, what the analysis implies, and what recommendations you are making  (if any) for future progression of the initiative.

You will lose marks if you include superfluous information. The Finance Director is highly knowledgeable about the business and will be irritated by time wasted reading an unfocussed report. Your report must present only pertinent information and key aspects of the financial  modelling.

This is a business style report for a non-academic ‘insider’. It must provide concise and easily readable information to aid decision-making. It must include explanation of major conceptual points  with simple definitions and explanation of relevant terminology (especially operational matters) and  complexities). The Finance Director is often unfamiliar with operational issues.

You MUST INCLUDE an Executive Summary. Assume that your report will be sent to the CEO so it  must be comprehensive and describe the ‘big picture’ and the main ‘numbers’ (e.g., EBIT, Capex,  NPV, IRR). The structure should also include Introduction, Discussion of Key Findings, and Conclusion. The Cover Page should not include the Executive Summary.

The Finance Director will expect your report to:

• analyse and discuss the information, and evaluate it critically.

• identify problems and suggest solutions.

• speculate about future trends and impacts.

The writing style must be a non-academic report - see the Guide to writing assignments issued by the

UTS Business School: www.uts.edu.au/node/50946/

An appropriate report format will include headings, sub-headings, bullet-points, tables and figures. It  must be easy for the Finance Director to understand the structure, and be able to selectively read sections of the whole report rather than the whole thing from start to finish. Although the report is to be in a non-academic style, you must reference appropriately and you absolutely must not plagiarise.

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