The Stamp Duties (Off-The-Plan Apartments) Amendment Bill 2014 (SA) has passed all stages of the SA Parliament without amendment and awaits Assent. It amends the Stamp Duties Act 1923 (SA) to extend the stamp duty concession for apartments bought off-the-plan to include a defined inner metropolitan area. The extended off-the-plan stamp duty concession applies to…
The Payroll Tax Rebate, Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 (Qld) was introduced in the Qld Legislative Assembly on 27 March 2015. The Bill proposes to provide a payroll tax rebate for apprentice and trainee wages by making amendments to the Payroll Tax Act 1971 (Qld). The Bill also proposes amendments to the Duties Act 2001…
Following a tax agent’s deregistration for making false or misleading statements in breach of s 50-20 of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (the TASA), the Federal Court has now imposed a civil penalty of $3,000 for false certification of the returns and $2,000 for the false information contained within them, but reduced the penalty to…
The Federal Court has held that a tax agent had breached the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA) by recklessly making statements to the Commissioner that were false, incorrect or misleading, although it did not impose a pecuniary penalty. Between August and September 2011, the registered tax agent prepared and lodged 90 individual income tax returns based on information…
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) yesterday [Mon 30.3.2015] revoked the charity registrations of 1,380 double defaulter charities who had not submitted their 2013 and 2014 Annual Information Statements. The ACNC Commissioner, Susan Pascoe AM, said revocation “is a last resort”; however, charities that do not meet their obligations will lose their charity registration…
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) has warned that 1,400 charities face losing access to a range of Commonwealth tax concessions if they do not submit their overdue reporting before 30 March 2015. These charities have been identified for not having submitted their Annual Information Statement to the ACNC for 2 consecutive years. ACNC Commissioner, Susan…
Accountants who want to continue to provide SMSF advice from 1 July 2016 must be appropriately licenced. One of the licencing options is a limited AFS licence which requires the accountant to be a member of an ASIC-approved external dispute resolution scheme (EDR) like the Financial Ombudsman Service Australia (FOS). FOS says it will work to “resolve…
The ATO says it understands that some individuals and organisations are promoting arrangements where SMSF monies are deposited into unit trusts or pooled investment trusts less a management fee. This money is then used to obtain a personal or business related mortgage which results in the SMSF assets being used to provide members with current-day…
Responding to suggestions that people should be allowed to access their superannuation to help in buying their first home, the Prime Minister said in a doorstop interview [on Mon 9.3.2015] that the idea had “been around for quite some time”. He said it was an idea that “has a lot of currency in other countries,…
Superannuation rates and thresholds for 2015/16, 02 March 2015 The ATO has released the key superannuation rates and thresholds for the 2015/16 year. These rates and thresholds have been indexed in accordance with the average weekly ordinary time earnings figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The key superannuation rates and thresholds include the…