The AAT has upheld the Commissioner’s disallowance of a taxpayer’s claim for the R&D tax offset. The taxpayer carries on a business designing and manufacturing what it calls “environmental technology”. As part of its business, the taxpayer claimed it undertook R&D activities in relation to a project, which sought to develop 3 beverage purifier devices.…
The AAT has upheld the Commissioner’s assessments finding that drivers employed by the taxpayer were common law “employees” of the taxpayer and not independent contractors. The taxpayer had an agreement with a company for the delivery of the company’s bakery products. During the relevant period, the taxpayer engaged a number of “drivers” to make the…
In a decision handed down Thur 13.6.2013, the Federal Court has held that the AAT fell into jurisdictional error when it made orders in relation to an application before it against a disallowed objection that (i) the proceedings be held in private, (ii) that the AAT not disclose or publish any of the evidence given…
The AAT has held it was not appropriate to exercise the non-commercial losses discretion in the taxpayer’s favour to allow losses from a cattle stud to be offset against other income of the taxpayer. The taxpayer is an engineer. He earns in excess of $250,000 a year from his engineering work. In 2009, he established…
The AAT has held that it did not have jurisdiction to consider a taxpayer’s application for review of the ATO’s ‘re-raising’ of the taxpayer’s debts for unpaid PAYG instalments, GST and GIC. In December 2011, the ATO informed the taxpayer that, as a result of the lodgment of his tax return for the year ended 30 June 2011, a…
The Federal Court has dismissed a taxpayer’s application for leave to appeal from the decision in DCT v Hua Wang Bank Berhad (No 3) & Ors [2012] FCA 594 in which the Federal Court refused to grant the taxpayer a stay of enforcement of a summary judgment obtained by the Commissioner against the taxpayer for…
The AAT has held that a taxpayer had not discharged his burden of proving that an assessment was excessive, and effectively held that he was an Australian “resident” in the 2011 income year. The facts were as follows. The taxpayer is an engineer and was born in India and remains an Indian citizen. He came…
The AAT has affirmed the Commissioner’s views and held that employee share scheme awards received by a taxpayer should be treated as qualifying rights and therefore assessable, and that penalties imposed by the Commissioner should be upheld. The taxpayer was at all material times a senior officer in the Australian subsidiary of a large multi-national…
The Federal Court has dismissed 4 taxpayers’ applications for leave to appeal from the 21 December 2012 decision of Perram J in DCT v Hua Wang Bank Berhad (No 4) [2012] FCA 1482. In that decision, the taxpayers were unsuccessful in their applications for the GIC component of an earlier summary judgment against them to be dismissed. That…
The Government has released a Discussion Paper seeking comments on its proposal to introduce a $2,000 cap on tax deduction claims for work-related self-education expenses per person from 1 July 2014. The proposal was announced by the Treasurer on 13 April 2013 “as part of a package of reforms to make a down-payment on the National Plan for School…