Daily Archives: December 14, 2016

FCT v Jayasinghe – Commissioner grated leave to appeal decision that the taxpayer’s income from the UN was exempt from tax as the ‘holder of an office’ under the Privileges and Immunities Act

The Commissioner has been granted special leave to appeal to the High Court against the Full Federal Court decision in FCT v Jayasinghe [2016] FCAFC 79. The Full Federal Court had by majority dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal from an AAT decision which had found that a taxpayer was exempt from his earnings as the “holder of…

MNWA Pty Ltd v DCT – Full Court dismisses appeal to have statutory demands set aside despite allegations of a global deal and written agreements providing security

In a majority decision, the Full Federal Court dismissed the appeal of 2 corporate taxpayers to have statutory demands set aside. The taxpayers carried on property development activities. One of the directors of the companies claimed he reached a “global deal” with the ATO to bring to an end debt recovery action against the companies…

TA 2016/12 – Trusts: contrived s97(1)(a) ‘proportionate approach’ avoidance – distributable ‘trust law’ net income limited to exclude the economic substance in what would otherwise be the beneficiary’s taxable ‘net income’

On Thur 17.11.2016, the ATO released Taxpayer Alert TA 2016/12, which deals with trust income reduction arrangements the ATO is reviewing. This Alert cautions against arrangements that minimise tax by creating artificial differences between the taxable net income and distributable income of closely held trusts. The ATO says the arrangements appear designed to exploit the…