In a decision handed down on Fri 26.4.2013, the Federal Court allowed a taxpayer’s appeal and held that default assessments that included as assessable income a $58m capital gain were precluded by the Australia/US DTA. In July 2007, the taxpayer (RCF) sold 52.5m fully paid ordinary shares in St Barbara Mines Ltd (now called St Barbara Limited)…
On Mon 4.3.2013, ASIC released its finalised guidance (RG 246) to help industry understand the practical operation of the ban on conflicted remuneration and how ASIC will administer it. The ban on conflicted remuneration is part of the FoFA reforms, and applies to both personal and general advice given to retail clients about any financial…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tue 5.3.2013, released the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) for the December Quarter 2012. They show that, for the 3 months ended 31 December 2012, taxation revenue increased by 13.9% from $92.6bn to id=”mce_marker”05.5bn. During the same period, general government sector expenditure exceeded revenue, resulting in a GFS net operating balance of -2.9bn. The…
At its meeting on Tue 5.3.2013, the Reserve Bank Board decided to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 3%. The Board said “with inflation likely to be consistent with the target, and with growth likely to be a little below trend over the coming year, an accommodative stance of monetary policy is appropriate”. It…
Following the OECD’s 2011 report Corporate Loss Utilisation through Aggressive Tax Planning, the OECD released on 13 March 2013 a new report Aggressive Tax Planning Based on After-Tax Hedging. It describes the features of Aggressive Tax Planning (ATP) schemes based on after-tax hedging as well as the strategies used to detect and respond to those schemes. The…
The Department of Finance and Deregulation, through the Australian Government Information Management Office, has released a draft version of its Big Data Strategy Issues Paper for public consultation. The aim of the strategy is to “highlight key opportunities and challenges that big data will bring to government agencies” and “to assist agencies to take advantage…
A new survey conducted by Deloitte Australia and international legal practice Norton Rose has found the tax consequences of issuing share options to employees are so burdensome that, although 94% of companies think employee share options are a valuable way to incentivise employees, only around 1 in 3 companies (37%) had actually issued share options…
The Government has advised that a pilot program which matched Centrelink records against eBay users would become a permanent part of its compliance system from May this year. The Government reported that the program identified some people were claiming social security payments while running what it considered to be a successful online business. It said the program…
The Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013 was introduced into the House Reps this on Wed 20.3.2013, to give effect to the Government’s proposal to restrict the use of the terms “financial planner” and “financial adviser” to support the FoFA reforms. The Bill proposes to amend the Corporations Act 2001 to…
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, delivered the 2013-14 Budget on 20 March 2013. Key points include: reducing the main rate of corporation tax to 20%. making the first £10,000 of people’s income free from income tax a year ahead of schedule – the personal allowance will be increased by £560 to £10,000 in 2014-15;…