The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank Group (WBG) announced today the details of their joint effort to intensify their cooperation on tax issues: the Platform for Collaboration on Tax. The Platform will not only formalize regular discussions between the four…
On 16 April 2016, the Inspector General of Taxation (IGT) lodged a further Submission to to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue’s (Committee) Inquiry into the External Scrutiny of the Australian Taxation Office (Inquiry). This was to supplement its initial Submission made in March 2016 after having the benefit of seeing the other submissions…
The AAT has affirmed a decision of the Tax Practitioners Board to refuse an application for registration as a tax agent. The Board had rejected the person’s application for registration as a tax agent because it was not satisfied that she met the eligibility requirements for registration under s20-5(1) of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA).…
A company taxpayer failed to get an order for damages, in negligence (and cognate actions) against its tax agents in the Qld Court of Appeal. In November 2007, the appellant company transferred land for a consideration of $1.6m. For that transaction, the ATO assessed the company as liable to pay GST, income tax and penalties on each of…
The Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2016 Measures No 1) Regulation 2016 was registered on 15.4.2016. It makes consequential amendments the GST regs and the SIS regs to account for changes to the tax law to be made by the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2016 Measures No 1) Bill 2016 and already made the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015…
On 15.4.2016, the ATO issued Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2016/6 (Determining source of certain hedging gains for the purposes of s770-75). It sets out the ATO’s compliance approach to working out the source of certain hedging gains for the purposes of calculating the foreign income tax offset limit in s 770-75 of the ITAA 1997. The Guidelines apply…
The taxpayers have applied for special leave to appeal to the High Court against the decision in Seymour v FCT [2016] FCAFC 18. The Full Federal Court had by majority (Pagone J dissenting) dismissed a husband and wife taxpayers’ appeal from the 7 April 2015 decision of Buchanan J (in FCT v Seymour [2015] FCA 320) that had set aside an order made by the…
The Commissioner has applied for special leave to appeal to the High Court against the decision in Financial Synergy Holdings Pty Ltd v FCT [2016] FCAFC 31. The Full Federal Court had unanimously allowed the taxpayer’s appeal from the decision of Pagone J at first instance [2015] FCA 53. The taxpayer had to determine the cost base of an…
The ATO released PS LA 2016/1 on Thur 14.4.2016. It applies from that date and provides guidance to ATO staff when they are proposing transfer pricing adjustments, under Subdiv 815B of the ITAA 1997, involving imported purchases with potential customs implications. The adjustments may have been made in an audit, a settlement, where the entity has objected to an amended…
On 12.4.16 the European Commission announced a proposal to build on the Commission’s work to tackle corporate tax avoidance in Europe, estimated to cost EU countries EUR 50-70 billion a year in lost tax revenues. Supplementing other proposals to introduce sharing of information between tax authorities, it would require multinationals operating in the EU with global…