The State Taxation Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 (Vic) has passed the Victorian Legislative Assembly with 4 Government amendments. The Bill is now before the Legislative Council. It proposes to implement a number of measures announced in the Victorian State Budget Update for 2013-14 (handed down in December 2013), including: measures in relation to the congestion levy and…
The Duties (Commercial Leases) Amendment Bill 2014 (ACT) has passed all stages without amendment and awaits notification. It amends the Duties Act 1999 (ACT) to introduce a premium-based method for assessing duty on commercial leases, being leases that have only a commercial purpose, or more than one purpose including commercial purposes. Examples of commercial activities…
The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) has released presentation videos for tax agents and BAS agents via the TPB YouTube channel. The Board said in the last 10 months it had hosted a number of information sessions around Australia with some 2,000 tax and BAS agents attending those sessions. So that all agents could have access…
In a video posted on the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) website, Board Chairman Ian Taylor provided an overview of the regulation of tax (financial) advisers from 1 July 2014. Mr Taylor said a tax financial advice service must consist of 5 key elements as follows It must be a tax agent service (excluding representations to the Tax…
The Tax Practitioners Board has been successful before the Federal Court in seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against an individual for alleged contraventions of s 50-5(1) of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009. The Board alleged the individual, who had never been registered as a tax agent, had contravened s 50-5(1) on 86 separate occasions between July 2010 and October 2012…
The Inspector-General of Taxation (IGT), Mr Ali Noroozi, on 10.4.2014, announced his new work program for improving tax administration in Australia. The new IGT work program consists of the following reviews: Review into the ATO Taxpayers’ Charter and taxpayer protections. Review into the ATO’s approach to debt collection. Review into the ATO’s services and support…
The Inspector-General of Taxation, Ali Noroozi, has advised that his office recently launched an official Twitter account. He said the IGT will use this Twitter account to broadcast matters of interest such as the announcement of his new work program which is expected to take place this month (April 2014). The official IGT Twitter account…
Good governance is an area of concern for newer charities, a recent review by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) has found. In examining its 15 most significant current compliance cases, the ACNC said it found that every case involved governance issues. One-third of these cases involved charities less than 5 years old, all…
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) says thousands of charities have shared valuable information about their work by submitting their first ever information statement to the Commission. More than 25,000 of the estimated 30,000 charities with a 31 March deadline completed their Annual Information Statement on time. This involved a series of questions about the core…
This Determination, released on Wed 9.4.2014, sets out the circumstances in which a bank account of a complying superannuation fund is a “segregated current pension asset” under s 295-385 of the ITAA 1997. The application of the definition to a bank account is a key requirement for a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) to qualify for a…