The WA State Administrative Tribunal has ordered a reassessment of duty on mining tenements based on a dutiable value of $1.14bn. On 8 September 2010, the boards of Avoca Resources Limited and Anatolia Minerals Development Limited announced that they had agreed to enter into a scheme of arrangement under which Anatolia would acquire all of the shares…
The AAT has held that it lacked the jurisdiction to review a private ruling as the ruling dealt with a different decision to that sought by the taxpayers. In a private ruling application, the taxpayers had sought from the Commissioner that he “confirm taxpayer is within the limits to claim 6 year exemption rule in…
The AAT has held that a taxpayer had failed the onus of proving that assessments were excessive. The Commissioner audited the taxpayer for the 2006 and 2008-2011 years and determined tax shortfalls of $1.5m, including penalties and interest. Amended s 167 assessments and shortfall penalty assessments were issued. During the audit, the Commissioner formed the opinion…
In a test case decision handed down on Mon 11.4.2016, concerning a company in liquidation, the NSW Court of Appeal has allowed the Commissioner’s appeal and held that the primary judge had erred in concluding that 4 debits made by the Commissioner were not authorised by Running Balance Accounts (RBA) regime under the TAA. However, the…
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble gave details of a plan on Sunday (11.4.16) to combat tax havens including creating an international network of registers that list the actual owners of companies. A huge leak of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca has shown how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of…
Government officials from around the world have called on the OECD to convene a special project meeting of the Joint International Tax Shelter Information and Collaboration (JITSIC) Network to explore possibilities of co-operation and information-sharing, identify tax compliance risks and agree collaborative action, in light of the “Panama Papers” revelations. The meeting, was held in Paris on 13 April 2016, to bring…
On 8 April 2016, judgment was handed down by the Federal Court (Logan J) in the matter of Crown Estates (sales) Pty Ltd Crown Estates Pty Ltd as Trustee for Crown Estates unit trust V Commissioner of Taxation [2016] FCA 335. The appeal was dismissed. Logan J concluded that the taxpayer was not entitled to claim…
The WA Office of State Revenue (OSR) has reminded taxpayers that from 1 July 2016, the annual payroll tax threshold will change from $800,000 to $850,000. The diminishing threshold will be calculated on annual wages between $850,000 and $7.5m. The tapering value used to calculate the deductable amount will change from 8/67 (0.199) to 17/133 (0.128). The…
Two taxpayers have been successful before the Federal Court in a matter concerning boating expense claims and the quarantining rule under s 26-47 of the ITAA 1997. The Commissioner concluded that s 26-47 applied to boat chartering activities conducted by the taxpayers and therefore quarantined deductions claimed by the taxpayers that exceeded the respective company’s assessable income…
On 6 April 2016, Treasury released a draft of the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2016 National Innovation and Science Agenda) Bill 2016, which was to further the ‘National Innovation and Science Agenda’ by making it easier for companies to carry forward their tax losses and capital losses by adding a ‘similar’ business test to the…