The Government has released for public consultation an exposure draft for Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No 2) Regulation 2014: Calculating defined benefit contributions – final arrangements from 1 July 2013 and the accompanying explanatory material. The draft Regulation prescribes the methodology for determining defined benefit contributions for Div 293 tax purposes in respect of the…
From the ATO website: GST and property – ATO guide to help taxpayers work out how GST applies to property sales and transactions. [LTN 49, 13/3/14]
A taxpayer which operated (via a unit trust) a business of repairing, maintaining and hiring motor vehicles, has been partly successful in challenging GST assessments. The assessments related to the period from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2010 and were issued following an audit of the taxpayer’s activity statements. The taxpayer had disclosed taxable supplies totalling id=”mce_marker”.015m, leading…
The Full Federal Court has unanimously upheld the Commissioner’s argument that a supply made by an Australian inbound tour operator to overseas customers was fully subject to GST. At first instance, the Federal Court held that the supply of a promise to provide travel products (such as hotel rooms, airport transfers etc) to non-resident tourists…
The Magistrates Court of Qld (at Brisbane) has held that GST on domestic and imported goods used in a coal seam gas project in Qld is a component of the cost of building and construction work and therefore subject to a building and construction training levy, and long service leave levy and a work health…
The Treasurer has agreed to a request from the States collectively to further explore options around lowering the value at which GST is applied to the importation of goods into Australia. The threshold is currently id=”mce_marker”,000. The Treasurer has also proposed an asset recycling initiative, which he said “could see the Commonwealth offer substantial financial…
The Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No 1) Bill 2014 was introduced into the House of Reps on Thur 27.3.2014. It contains the following amendments: GST excess refunds – the Bill proposes to amend the GST Act and the TAA to ensure that overpaid GST is refundable only in certain circumstances. The amendments would allow…
The House of Reps Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue on Thur 27.3.2014, tabled its report on the inquiry into the ATO Annual Report 2012-13. The Committee’s report is based on a public hearing held on 28 February 2014 at Parliament House, Canberra. One of the key themes at the hearing was the move to simplifying and…
Annual registration of R&D activities with AusIndustry is a prerequisite for companies claiming the R&D Tax Incentive. The deadline for lodging an application for registration is 10 months after the end of a company’s income year. This means that companies with a standard year of income of 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 who wish to apply for…
The ATO has warned tax agents that criminals are targeting tax practitioners to steal details of their business and individual clients. The ATO says these thieves have used this stolen information to create false payment summaries, lodge fraudulent returns and obtain fraudulent GST refunds. Consequently, this can result in financial loss for tax agents and…