Message from the Board of Taxation Vale Michael Andrew AO It is with great sadness that the Board of Taxation (the Board) acknowledges the passing of its Chair, Michael Andrew AO, on Sunday 23 June. Michael was a highly respected member of the business and tax community as is reflected in the statement made…
In The Tax Institute’s newsletter: TaxVine (24, 28 June 2019), contained Louise Boyce’s National Technical Committee Chair’s Report, on the ATO’s controversial draft determination: TD 2019/D1, on the extent of demerger relief they think is available, under the law. Louise Boyce is Tax Counsel at Squire Patton Boggs, a global business law firm with 47 offices…
On 21 June 2019, the AAT (Lazanas SM) decided that Seabreeze (a pseudonym) had acquired land under the margin scheme, and was, therefore, eligible to also apply the ‘margin scheme’ to the sale of the town houses it had developed on the land. The twist was the lack of evidence, and how the taxpayer discharged…
The taxpayer has appealed to the Full Federal Court against the decision of Davies J in Mingos v CofT [2019] FCA 834. The Federal Court had held that the taxpayer was not entitled to the CGT main residence exemption as he did not have an “ownership interest” in a property sold by a discretionary trust. See…
On 19 June 2019, Mr Peter Murray of legal firm: Hall & Wilcox, presented his paper: ‘Taxation of Cryptocurrencies’ to the Melbourne Tax Discussion Group. This paper, and the slides he presented, are set out below. Many will be aware of Bitcoin and that it operates through software called ‘blockchain’. Similarly, many will know that…
The Coalition Government’s personal income tax plan, announced in the 2018 and 2019 Federal Budgets have been (respectively) legislated and merely announced – with the recently defeated Labor Opposition still divided as to whether to respect the re-elected Coalition Government’s mandate or oppose it. This article provides a succinct tabular summary of these enacted and…
On 20 June 2019, the Australian Financial Review published an article entitled: ‘Why the ATO is wrong to go after lawyers’, written by Clayton Utz partner: Ms Amber Augustin. The article contains a link, to another AFR article, which gives the ATO’s perspective on impediments to its investigations. But Amber goes on to explain that…
The Law Institute of Victoria made its own submission to the independent review of the Tax Practitioners Board and its enabling legislation, saying that it was concerned that tax agents appeared to be breaching the prohibition on unqualified legal practice. They did so in terms parallel to my own submission, about this same problem [see…
On 31.5.19, in the Tax Institute’s weekly TaxVine publication, the Institute’s Chair of the Tax Institute’s SME & Tax Practitioner Technical Committee (and partners at BDO): Mark Molesworth, reported on tax measures that the re-elected Government had announced, but had not enacted, at the time that Parliament rose for the election. See below for the details.…
On 24.5.19, the Tax Institute’s Tax Counsel: Stephanie Cardes, reported, in their weekly publication: TaxVine, on the tax policies, which the unexpectedly re-elected Government, took to the election. They were few, and set out in the April 2019 budget. See below, for greater detail. FJM 2.6.19 [Tax Month – May 2019] …