At an address in Melbourne Tue 13.11.2012, the Assistant Treasurer spoke on a range of issues including the Business Tax Working Group, Pt IVA reforms, transfer pricing, and tax reform in general (including State taxes reform). Some of the points he made included:
- The feedback to the Business Tax Working Group was that many businesses that would have been affected by the base broadening options asserted they would have been worse off under the trade-offs canvassed.
- “The bare fact that a taxpayer pays less tax if one form of transaction rather than another is made does not demonstrate that Pt IVA applies.”
- In the Government’s view, the problem with Pt IVA is with the way in which it goes about identifying and measuring the “tax advantage” secured by an arrangement entered into for the purpose of avoiding tax.
- Mr Bradbury will be releasing draft legislation for public consultation on the second phase of transfer pricing amendments “in the near future”. The new rules will apply on a self-assessment basis.
- The Federal Government considers that, in the first instance, State tax reform should be funded by the States through a rationalisation of their own tax bases.
Source: Assistant Treasurer’s address to the CCH Corporate Tax Managers Network, Melbourne, 13 November 2012
[LTN 220, 13/11]