The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) has released an updated version of a staff paper on accounting for Australia’s carbon pricing mechanism, specifically how to account for the ‘fixed price’ phase which is often referred to as a ‘carbon tax’. The latest update of the paper discusses the implications of the release of AASB Interpretation 21 ‘Levies’ (equivalent to IFRIC 21), and notes a number of interpretative issues surrounding the identification of the obligating event for the carbon tax. The AASB has written to the IFRS Interpretations Committee outlining these issues, which it considers are broader than the carbon pricing mechanism, and so could include other government imposts in the Australian and global contexts, such as payroll tax.