FCT v Primary Health Care Limited – taxpayer sought deductions for purchasing practices after Commissioner assessed doctors – FFC upheld late objections for that purpose

Tax Month - August 2017

The Full Federal Court has upheld an AAT decision treating 5 objections lodged by the taxpayer as having been lodged within time. The taxpayer operated medical centres. This included buying medical centres and at the same time acquiring the services of the relevant practitioners who would pay the taxpayer a percentage of their fees they…

Arnold and FCT – No deduction for purported gifts of AIDS drugs to African charities because of aspects of the scheme which Edmonds J, previously found, made it a ‘tax exploitation scheme’

Tax Month - August 2017

A taxpayer has been denied deductions for donations of HIV medicines and a gift certificate to deductible gift recipients (DGRs). The first deduction was claimed in the 2010 year. The taxpayer alleged that, on 30 June 2010, she purchased HIV medicines for $40,000 which she donated to an eligible DGR operating in Kenya. The medicines were stored…

Super fund (and SMSF) ‘transfer balance cap’ reporting of relevant events to the ATO – Position Paper on options for transition period from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2020

Tax Month - August 2017

The ATO has released a Positions Paper on how Super funds (including SMSFs) will be required to report events impacting an individual member’s pension transfer balance accounts for the purposes of the $1.6m cap. The ATO is seeking comment about options for phasing in this reporting over a ‘transition phase’. This $1.6m limit will introduce…

Twenty-seven per cent of ‘tax (financial) adviser’ notifiers did not renew in July – TPB announces in Media Release

Tax Month - August 2017

Over one quarter, or 27 per cent, of the 2,748 registered tax (financial) advisers due to renew their registration in July with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) the TPB Chair: Mr Ian Taylor announced in a media release on 24.8.17. ‘Failing to submit a renewal application by the expiry date means the registration expires,’ Mr Taylor…

Country by Country (CbC) reports – ATO makes a ‘determination’ for exchange of these reports and makes a similar ‘arrangement’ with the USA

Tax Month - August 2017

The Commissioner of Taxation has made a ‘Competent Authority determination’ setting out the information he will require taxpayers to supply him with, as part of the ‘Country by Country’ (CbC) Reporting arrangements. The Commissioner set out an inclusive list of the information taxpayers may have to supply, in his web post. By way of introduction,…

Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, the ATO and others report on the MAAL, their ATO audits and their restructuring – attracting public attention at the Senate Committee’s public hearing

Tax Month - August 2017

The Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into corporate tax avoidance has been running since 2 October 2014, whilst there had been much public concern about the amount of tax, and particularly Australian tax, various multinational household names paid – names like Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and others has generated much publicity. Though it was only…

Corporate Tax Avoidance – Multinationals (including Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook) report progress with ATO and in restructuring (22 August 2017 public meeting of the Senate Economic References Committee)

Tax Articles

[From Australian Financial Review – 22.8.17] ATO hails tech giants’ $7 billion sales surge Facebook vice-president of tax and treasury Ted Price said his company was being audited for “most of the years in which we’ve been doing business” in Australia. Kate Geraghty Share on twitter by Joanna Mather The world’s biggest technology companies are…

BFCB and FCT – Release from Tax Debt on grounds of ‘serious hardship’ rejected because expenses exceeded income and release from debt would not have relieved the hardship

Tax Month - August 2017

The AAT has upheld the Commissioner’s decision to refuse to release a taxpayer from a tax debt on hardship grounds. The taxpayer was assessed to pay income tax of $70,571 for the 2012-13 income year. She paid part of the tax debt but $61,108 of primary debt remained outstanding plus the GIC. She applied to…