EXCERPTS
The cost and complexity of child care have been named as barriers to women returning to work and will be the target of calls for more government support at this week's tax summit in Canberra.
A new report has identified child care as the biggest obstacle for women returning to work, while a group representing women in senior executive positions says the cost of care should be a tax-deductible work expense.
A report issued this week by two groups, the Equality Rights Alliance and the National Foundation for Australian Women, included the finding that, in relation to income, women saw child care as ''the most significant barrier to increased workforce participation''.
University of New South Wales School of Taxation and Business Law senior lecturer, Helen Hodgson, the co-author of the Women's Voices report, said dramatic simplification of the child-care system was needed.
Under the non-means-tested child care rebate, the Federal Government refunds half the cost of child care up to a maximum of $7500 a year but Ms Hodgson, who also prepared the NFAW submission to the two-day tax summit, said the cap should be increased or scrapped.
''Most people, if they are working in one of the major cities, will exhaust that cap before they get to five days of care [a week],'' Ms Hodgson said.
''If you are paying $85 a day you can afford four days and be under the cap, so you don't work the fifth day or you pay the full amount.''
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- reprinted from the Canberra Times