Department of the Treasury

Bowel cancer screening using faecal immunochemical tests (FIT) can detect early signs of bowel cancer and pre-cancerous adenoma. Early detection enables early diagnosis and treatment thereby reducing associated morbidity and mortality from bowel cancer. The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) in Australia mails free FIT kits to eligible people aged 50-74 every 2 years; currently, only 42% of people return their kits. People aged 45-49 are eligible but need to request their kit, and as this has been recently introduced, participation data are not yet available. Many people never participate despite multiple invitations; 'persistent never screeners' are defined as people who have received at least three NBCSP kits but never returned any. This trial aims to increase screening participation among persistent never screeners by modifying invitation materials. Eligible participants (persistent never screeners due for pre-invitation letters) will be randomly assigned to one of three trial arms over a 5-week enrolment period and followed up for 6 months. The trial will compare kit return between two intervention arms and a control arm to determine effectiveness. Individuals who are defined as persistent never screeners are eligible for the NBCSP and are due for a pre-invitation letter during the trial period. 1. A modified pre-invitation letter will be sent identifying that they have not yet screened with the program and that they are not up to date with their screening. It will highlight that they are at increased risk of bowel cancer and provide a QR code and weblink to a site that allows them to order a NBCSP kit. 2. A kit with revised invitation materials, including: a modified letter highlighting increased risk from not completing previous kits, a QR code linking to information addressing common screening barriers, and a modified outer envelope removing bowel cancer information from the front and adding 'Important information about your health inside' in seven languages. Standard NBCSP pre-invitation, invitation material and kit. This trial will provide evidence on whether modified invitation and pre-invitation materials can improve screening participation among persistent never-screeners, a consistently hard-to-reach subgroup in cancer screening programs globally.

Abstract This study estimates the impact of foreign demand for Australian residential real estate on property prices. Using postcode‐level administrative data and fixed‐effects regression techniques we find a positive relationship between foreign investment approvals and price growth. Our analysis suggests that, on average, foreign investment contributed between $80 and $122 to quarterly price growth in Sydney and Melbourne between July 2010 and March 2015. This is a small proportion of the increase in property prices over the period.

In part because of concerns that the tax depreciation system may be dated and may not properly measure income, Con- gress directed that the Treasury study the current tax depreciation system. This paper is derived from the staff work for the Treasury Study. The paper first discusses the rationale for a depreciation al- lowance. It next describes the current tax depreciation system. Using the cost of capital, the paper evaluates the current tax depreciation system. It then discusses several comprehensive reforms of the tax depreciation system, and calculates the effects of these reforms on the cost of capital. The final section discusses several practical prob- lems with the current tax depreciation system.

This paper seeks to frame the debate concerning the proposed Hope Scholarship tax credit and tuition tax deduction. By considering the interaction of the tax subsidy proposals with the Pell Grant program, the paper shows that although many students from lowincome families would not benefit from the nonrefundable tuition credit some would benefit from the deduction and most would be winners under the proposed Pell expansion. Moreover, because the benefits of the credit and deduction are limited with respect to low-income students, fears that they would engender tuition and grade inflation may be overstated. The paper also estimates an expected long-run enrollment response to the proposals of 150,000 to 1.4 million additional students, with the likely response closer to the low end of this range.

The first issue of NTWE featured a piece on work organisation at the Swedish Mail Centre at Tomteboda. In the light of a recent visit there, the author responds to that original account.

The method presented in this paper demonstrated that minute quantities of explosives such as EGDN, NG, and TNT can be easily detected and determined in relatively large amounts of debris after collecting their vapors on porous polymer beads. The method of collecting explosive vapors is simple, inexpensive, sensitive, and relatively fast compared to microscopic and physical methods of analysis.