The taxpayers in the following cases all applied for special leave to appeal to the High Court.
- Bywater Investments Ltd & Ors v FCT [2015] FCAFC 176. The Full Federal Court had dismissed the taxpayers’ appeals from 2 Federal Court decisions that had held the taxpayers were residents of Australia for tax purposes and were liable to pay income tax in Australia on profits made from the sale of shares.
- FCT v ElecNet (Aust) Pty Ltd (Trustee) [2015] FCAFC 178. The Full Federal Court had unanimously allowed the Commissioner’s appeal and held that an “industry severance trust scheme” for electrical workers was not a “unit trust” for the purposes of Div 6C of Pt III of the ITAA 1936 and therefore was not entitled to be taxed as a company.
- FCT v Donoghue [2015] FCAFC 183. The Full Federal Court had unanimously allowed the Commissioner’s appeal against the decisions of Logan J in Donoghue v FCT [2015] FCA 235 and Donoghue v FCT [2015] FCA 291, thereby effectively upholding default assessments issued by the ATO. This is the case in which Logan J held the tax debt unenforceable because actual bad faith in the ATO precluded there being an ‘assessment’ that could be the subject of the provisions in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (s175 & s177) that make a Notice of Assessment conclusive evidence of the making of an assessment.
[LTN 26, 10/2/16]