The Attorney-General has announced that the Governor-General has accepted the advice of the Government to appoint the Honourable Michelle Marjorie Gordon, a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, as the next Justice of the High Court of Australia. Justice Gordon will replace the Honourable Justice Kenneth Hayne AC, who will reach the statutory retirement on 5 June 2015. Justice Gordon will…
There are currently close to 100 serious criminal tax offence matters before the courts across the country. This is a result of government agencies working together to catch tax offenders and bring them to justice. Serious fraud offences that go before the courts include use of falsified invoices to claim deductions not entitled to, GST…
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon. George Osborne, MP, and the Treasurer of Australia, the Hon. Joe Hockey, MP, announced during the course of the G20 meeting the urgent establishment of a joint working group to further consider and develop initiatives in relation to diverted profits by multinational enterprises. The G20 meeting in…
The Prime Minister has ruled out any changes being made to negative gearing. He made the commitment when responding to a question about an ACOSS report that had recommended there should be tighter restrictions around what was claimable on negatively geared properties. [LTN 72, 17/4/15]
Treasury, on Tue 7.4.2015, released its Working Paper 2015-01. It aims to complement earlier studies and contribute to a broader discussion about the structure of Australia’s tax system by estimating the welfare cost and identifying the economic incidence of marginal changes to the tax system. The Paper’s estimates of the additional welfare cost of a…
Mr Hockey said: ‘The [relevant] integrity measures were in relation to what is emerging as an OECD consensus, that GST should be charged at the source [of the payment for the service], so a company providing intangible services into Australia, such as media services or so on, wherever they are located they should charge GST…
A notice has been gazetted specifying the repayment incomes and repayment rates for the Student Financial Supplement Scheme (SFSS) for the 2015-16 financial year. The details are: SFSS repayment rates 2015-16 For repayment income in the range Percentage rate to be applied to repayment income Below $54,126 Nil $54,126 to $66,456 2% $66,457 to $94,331…
The Treasury Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No 1) Regulation 2015 inserts the annual “cents per kilometre” rates for calculating tax deductions for car expenses for the 2014/15 income year in Pt 2 of Sch 1 to the Income Tax Assessment Regulations 1997. The rates are as follows: Description Engine capacity of car not powered by…
On 6 November 2013 the Government announced that it would proceed with amendments to strengthen the integrity of the tax consolidation rules. The Board of Taxation conducted a post-implementation review of the consolidation regime and provided reports to the former government in June 2012 and April 2013. The Board concluded that the consolidation regime is generally working…
On 14 December 2013, the Government announced it would proceed with amendments first announced in May 2012 to tighten the scrip for scrip roll-over rules. The intention is to make it harder for companies and trusts to avoid capital gains tax when they sell subsidiary companies other than as part of a genuine merger or…