The report of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on the Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill 2014 was tabled in the Senate on Mon 7.7.2014. The Committee majority recommended the Bill be passed, although Labor and Greens Senators issued dissenting reports. The purpose of the Bill is to provide the framework to administer the…
The Government Mon 21.7.2014, release a discussion paper, Review of retirement income stream regulation, to investigate the regulatory barriers for retirement income stream products. The discussion paper also considers extending concessional tax treatment to facilitate deferred lifetime annuities (DLA) and the minimum annual payment amounts for account-based pensions. The Acting Assistant Treasurer said that the…
At an address on Wed 16.7.2014 to CPA Australia’s SMSF Conference 2014, ASIC Commissioner Greg Tanzer warned of ASIC’s concern about advice being given to SMSFs to invest in property. He said ASIC was aware there had been a sharp rise in promoters recommending that investors either set up or use an existing SMSF to…
The ATO monitors the SMSF industry continuously to ensure that funds are paying the correct tax and that their sole purpose is to meet members’ retirement income objectives. At an address in Sydney Thur 17.7.2014, ATO Assistant Commissioner SMSFs, Matt Bambrick, said areas of concern to the ATO for this year include: The use of…
ASIC has announced a $3 increase in the SMSF auditor registration and competency exam fees, as well as a id=”mce_marker” increase in the lodgment of an SMSF auditor annual statement. From 1 July 2014, the SMSF auditor registration is id=”mce_marker”03, SMSF auditor competency exam (id=”mce_marker”03) and SMSF auditor annual statement ($51). Approved SMSF auditors must be registered…
A taxpayer has been unsuccessful before the AAT in seeking the Commissioner’s discretion under s 292-465 of the ITAA 1997 to disregard or re-allocate to another financial year all or part of her excess non-concessional contributions to super in the 2010-11 financial year. The case involved a husband and wife who had re-organised their superannuation accounts…
This GST Determination, issued Wed 30.7.2014, states that payments made to a purchaser of real property, by a vendor, when the rent received falls below the rental yield guaranteed by the vendor of the real property for a specified period, give rise to an adjustment event for the purposes of Div 19 of the GST Act…
This Draft GST Ruling, issued on Wed 30.7.2014, outlines the GST treatment of fees payable for ATM services, surcharges imposed on credit card transactions, and surcharges imposed on debit card transactions. It includes 8 examples which considers various scenarios and outlines the GST treatment of the scenarios. DATE OF EFFECT: When the final Ruling is…
The A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) (Tertiary Courses) Determination 2014 was registered Mon 28.7.2014. It specifies part-time tertiary courses to be tertiary courses for the purposes of the GST Act with the effect that GST is not payable on the supply of those courses. The Determination is taken to have commenced on…
The CPI indexation factor, which is used for FBT purposes concerning remote area benefits (under ss 60 and 60AA of the FBTAA), for the June quarter 2014 increased 0.5 from the March 2014 quarter to 105.9. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said inflation was running at 3.0% through the year to 30 June 2014 (up from 2.9% through the year…