Capital gains for the rich and persistent gender pay gaps: what we can learn from the ATO’s annual tax statistics | Greg Jericho

On Friday, the ATO released the annual taxation statistics. These provide the data on everyone’s 2022-23 tax returns.If you love spreadsheets, you’ll love this release – one of them has 167 columns of data on everything from how many people earned “less than $0” (110,372) to how many of those who earned more than $1m had a Hecs debt (73). It also revealed that 91 millionaires paid no tax because they were able to reduce their “taxable” income to below the tax-free threshold.But as most of you are sensible and do not love spreadsheets, let me dive into them and tell you what you need to know

London is leaving the door wide open to private equity raiders | Nils Pratley

This shouldn’t happen in a well-functioning stock market: a grownup industrial company, listed in London since 1988, with revenues of £1.3bn last year and pre-tax profits of £191m, is being taken out by private equity at a 96% premium to the pre-action share price. How can a business be worth twice as much in private hands than on the public markets?The company is Spectris, a low-profile but high-quality FTSE 250 maker of precision instruments and testing equipment used in everything from food manufacturing to automotives. The buyer is KKR with an agreed offer of £4.1bn that beats fellow US private equity house Advent’s £3

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned.Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication. The notes have previously been written by humans.X said using AI to write factchecking notes – which sit beneath some X posts – “advances the state of the art in improving information quality on the internet”.Keith Coleman, the vice-president of product at X, said humans would review AI-generated notes and the note would appear only if people with a variety of viewpoints found it useful

AI helps find formula for paint to keep buildings cooler

AI-engineered paint could reduce the sweltering urban heat island effect in cities and cut air-conditioning bills, scientists have claimed, as machine learning accelerates the creation of new materials for everything from electric motors to carbon capture.Materials experts have used artificial intelligence to formulate new coatings that can keep buildings between 5C and 20C cooler than normal paint after exposure to midday sun. They could also be applied to cars, trains, electrical equipment and other objects that will require more cooling in a world that is heating up.Using machine learning, researchers at universities in the US, China, Singapore and Sweden designed new paint formulas tuned to best reflect the sun’s rays and emit heat, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the science journal Nature.It is the latest example of AI being used to leapfrog traditional trial-and-error approaches to scientific advances

Architect behind MCG’s Shane Warne Stand says mooted upgrades ‘don’t pass the pub test’

The architect who helped design the MCG’s Shane Warne Stand has urged the Melbourne Cricket Club to reconsider plans to demolish and replace the venerated grandstand, given the mooted upgrades – estimated to cost $200,000 per additional seat – don’t “pass the pub test”.The towering structure formerly known as the Great Southern Stand, which won a prominent design award as recently as 2020 and is younger than Collingwood midfielder Steele Sidebottom, was completed in 1992 on the narrow envelope between the hallowed MCG turf and Brunton Avenue, adjacent to the train tracks south of the stadium. It was renamed in honour of Warne after the leg-spinner’s death in 2022.MCC president, Fred Oldfield, told members at his organisation’s AGM last year the 45,000-seat stand, which received a $55m refurbishment in 2012, will need a “complete rebuild” at some stage, and the chief executive, Stuart Fox, has described it as a “priority”.The MCC operates the ground on behalf of the Victorian government-appointed MCG Trust, the organisation chaired by former Victorian premier Steve Bracks with former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire on its board

Wimbledon 2025: Raducanu beats Vondrousova, Fritz survives, Osaka through, Paolini exits – as it happened

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to join us tomorrow for more coverage from SW19.And Fritz finishes it off, helped out by a couple of Diallo unforced errors. He advances to a third-round tie with the winner of the match between Botic Van de Zancschulp and Aleandro Davidovich Fokina, which was suspended for darkness and will resume tomorrow.Diallo does his part in holding from love-15 down