The Federal Court has granted an application by the Tax Practitioners Board for the imposition of civil penalties under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA), together with declaratory and injunctive relief in respect of numerous contraventions of the TASA alleged against the respondent. The Court noted the parties had agreed to a penalty of…
The Tax Practitioners’ Board (TPB) has issued for comment the following exposure draft information sheets: Exposure draft TPB (I) D17/2013 (Code of Professional Conduct – reasonable care to ascertain a client’s state of affairs) – This Draft Information sheet provides guidance on the application of Code Item 9. Code Item 9 requires registered agents to…
ASIC Commissioner Greg Tanzer on Fri 30.8.2013, provided a regulatory update on ASIC’s work in relation to self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) at the Tax Institute’s National Superannuation Conference. Key points include: SMSF advice and additional disclosure requirements – Mr Tanzer said that as part of the next stage of the SMSF taskforce, ASIC will release…
The Tax Office has released its SMSF News (Edition 27) indicating that it will start issuing the first assessments for the new Division 293 tax in January 2014 for individuals above the $300,000 high-income threshold for the 2012-13 financial year. The Tax Office said it will determine who is liable to pay the Div 293 tax by adding…
Accountants who are thinking about providing SMSF advice should choose the licensing option that best suits their business model, says the SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA). Liz Ward, Head of SPAA’s Education Services, said 1 in 4 accountants who are SPAA members (and not operating under an Australian financial services licence (AFSL)) have decided…
This Draft Determination, released on Wed 7.8.2013, sets out the circumstances in which the Commissioner considers that an asset of a complying superannuation fund is a “segregated current pension asset” under s 295-385 of the ITAA 1997. This is a key requirement for a complying superannuation fund to qualify for a tax exemption on certain income…
Following the release of Taxation Ruling TR 2013/5 (see last month), the Tax Office, on Wed 31.7.2013, issued an SMSF Alert (and a SuperUpdate Alert) to flag key concessions not mentioned in the final ruling about starting and stopping a superannuation income stream. If a fund fails to meet the pension rules in an income…
A taxpayer has been unsuccessful before the AAT in arguing for relief from the Commissioner’s imposition of excess non-concessional contributions tax. The taxpayer had contributed $430,000 into his super fund account in the 2007-08 financial year. However, in September 2008 and in response to the global financial crisis, the taxpayer withdrew half the money. In September 2009, the taxpayer…
In a related matter, the Full Federal Court upheld the decision at first instance in Kelly v FCT (No 2) [2012] FCA 689 that the taxpayer’s family trust was not entitled to a deduction under s 290-60 of the ITAA 1997 for super contributions of id=”mce_marker”00,000 made on behalf of the husband and wife trustee directors…
On 4 February 2013, the OECD released an invitation to comment on 4 new draft elements of the OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines. The OECD is developing the Guidelines to address uncertainty and risks of double taxation and unintended non-taxation that result from inconsistencies in the application of VAT to international trade, with a specific focus on trade…