The taxpayers have appealed to the Full Federal Court against the decision in John Holland Group Pty Ltd & Anor v FCT [2014] FCA 1332. The Federal Court had dismissed the taxpayers’ appeal. The issue was whether John Holland was entitled to reduce, by the “otherwise deductible rule”, the FBT payable on the value of return…
A company has been successful before the AAT in discharging the burden of proof that GST and income tax assessments issued to it following an audit by the Commissioner were “excessive”. The company was the trustee of the Raschta Coatings Trust and its business was involved buying and selling protective coatings used on steel and…
The AAT has held that an engineer, who returned to Australia in April 2011 after working overseas since 2004, was not a resident of Australia for the whole of the 2011 year. The taxpayer was working as a lead instrumentation engineer and manager in Oman for a multinational company in the oil and gas industry from 4 January 2010…
The AAT has held that an amount of Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) deducted from a taxpayer’s Irish salary was not a “substantially similar tax” to Australian income tax for the purposes of Australia-Ireland double tax agreement (Irish Agreement) and he was therefore not entitled to a foreign income tax offset for that Insurance. The…
In a case involving CGT and trust issues, the AAT has held that the sale of a business was a CGT event A1 that happened in the 2007 income year [for the vendor unit trust and that beneficiaries of unit holding trusts. However, the Tribunal then adjourned the case] for consideration issues surrounding the maximum…
The Federal Court has rejected a taxpayer’s appeal against an earlier AAT decision concerning amended assessments. Originally, the AAT (in Confidential and FCT [2014] AATA 32) affirmed objection decisions made by the Commissioner to deny a taxpayer deductions of close to id=”mce_marker”m concerning partnership losses in relation to his investment in a forestry managed investment…
The Federal Court has allowed a taxpayer’s appeal and held that payments it made to the IOC for broadcasting rights to the Olympic Games were not ‘royalties’ under the Australia-Switzerland DTA, and that it was not required to withhold amounts from the payments. Seven Network Limited (Seven) made a series of payments between March 2006 and August 2008 to…
In a decision handed down on Wed 28.1.2015, the Full Federal Court unanimously dismissed the taxpayer’s appeal from the decision in Taras Nominees Pty Ltd as Trustee for the Burnley Street Trust v FCT [2014] FCA 1. In that case, the Federal Court held that the taxpayer had effected the disposal of land that it…
The Full Federal Court has partly allowed appeals by commissioned officers of the Western Australian police force against superannuation contributions tax assessments. The question in the appeals was whether the Commonwealth can validly impose a superannuation surcharge tax upon commissioned officers of the Western Australian police force. The Acts imposing the tax have already been…
In an address at the Australasian Tax Teachers Association Conference in Adelaide on 20 January 2015, Justice Richard Edmonds of the Federal Court gave a paper entitled “Structural Tax reform: What should be brought to the table?“. Edmonds J said the trade-off for Australia’s high tax-free threshold and the steep increase in rates after the tax-free threshold, is that…