ASIC disqualifies two separate Queensland SMSF auditors – breach of ‘independence requirements’ auditing their own funds, the fund of an immediate family member and the fund of a close family member

Tax Month - November 2018

On Tuesday 30 October 2018, ASIC announced that it had disqualified two separate self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF) auditors: John Gilliland and Douglas Coghlan, both of Queensland, for breaching independence requirements. ASIC found both Mr Gilliland and Mr Coghlan had separately breached auditor independence requirements in auditing their own funds, the fund of an immediate family member…

The Tax Practitioners Board’s 2017/18 Annual Report – revealing growth in total registrations since inception and overall complaints numbers and outcomes

Tax Month - November 2018

The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) released its 2017/18 Annual Report under s60–130(1) of the Tax AgentServices Act 2009. Amongst the things it reports on, are the following. The TPB has been in operation, 8 years (since 1 March, 2018). By 30 June 2018 the registered tax practitioner population had tripled to 77,749 (since the beginning),…

UK Budget 2018: BEPS and other corporate tax measures – PE changes, Hybrid Mismatches, Diverted Profits Tax, Non-UK companies with UK property businesses and Hybrid Capital Instruments

Tax Month - November 2018

On 29 October 2018, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, handed down the 2018 UK Budget and announced a range of tax measures. While the headline measure was the proposed 2% digital services tax on large digital firms from April 2020 (see related Tax Technical Article), the UK Government also announced a range of corporate…

UK announces a 2% unilateral, and temporary, ‘Digital Services Tax’ (DST) on ‘within scope’ revenues linked to UK users – large: ‘social media platforms’, ‘online market places’ and ‘search engines’

Tax Month - November 2018

On UK Budget day: 29 Oct 2018, the UK Government announced that it will unilaterally introduce a 2% digital services tax on the revenues of large digital firms that are linked to users in the UK (whilst continuing to contribute to global consensus on a long term answer to this challenge to the UK tax…

ATO collects share sale data from an additional source – to help ‘prefil’ tax returns and ensure disclosures are correct and complete

Tax Month - November 2018

On 30 October 2018, the ATO posted the following statement on its latest data matching protocol, which will see the ATO continue to receive share data from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). The data includes details of the price, quantity and time of individual trades dating back to 2014, with more than 500 million…

DCT v Wilson – DPN liability for director of construction company – despite shareholder/director agreements to avoid PAYGw liability by not hiring employees, broken by the other directors, in their area of geographic responsibility and timely meetings to appoint an administrator or liquidator (where he was outvoted)

Tax Month - October 2018

The NSW District Court has rejected a director’s defences to a director’s penalty notice (DPN) for $111,798. The defendant was the director of a construction company, formed in April 2015. Its activities were mainly conducted in Western Australia. The company lodged BASs in respect of the periods 1 April 2015 to 30 June 2015 and 1 July 2015 to 30 September 2015. The BASs identified…

PCG 2018/7 – restructuring out of arrangements likely to offend the new ‘anti-hybrid rules’ – 6 examples where the ATO will NOT apply Part IVA and a list of ‘low risk’ features (for deploying audit resources)

Tax Month - October 2018

Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2018/7, issued on Thursday 25.10.2018. It sets out the ATO’s compliance approach to restructures out of existing hybrid arrangements to avoid the potential application of the hybrid mismatch rules. The anti-hybrid rules, will generally take effect from 1 January 2019, and they address certain hybrid arrangements that exploit differences in the tax treatment…

Consultation on proposed amendments to Div 7A – 10 year complying loans; self-correct ‘inadvertent’ breaches; UPE’s brought within Div 7A

Tax Month - October 2018

On 22 October 2018m, the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon Stuart Robert MP, released a consultation paper seeking views on the proposed implementation of the amendments to Division 7A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA36). He said the proposed amendments drew on recommendations from the Board of Taxation and will provide clearer rules for taxpayers…

IGT’s report – no evidence of systemic internal fraud or corruption in the ATO – report prompted by ATO fallout following the high profile ‘Project Elbrus’ investigation – IGT made 13 recommendations to ATO & 1 to Government (all accepted, at least in part)

Tax Month - October 2018

The Inspector-General of Taxation (IGT), Mr Ali Noroozi, has announced the release of his report into the ATO’s fraud control management. The review arose because of the concerns surrounding Operation Elbrus (a major phoenixing operation conducted by the son of a senior tax officer), including allegations of tax fraud that may be associated to abuse of position…