A company was not entitled to the cash flow boost in respect of an amount paid to its sole director because it entered into a scheme to increase its entitlement to the cash flow boost.
The company’s 2 shareholders (Mr and Mrs K) decided in late March 2020 to pay Mrs K (its sole director) $25,000 remuneration. In previous years, she was only renumerated if there was taxable income as at the end of the income year. The company’s books recorded a PAYG withholding amount of $11,398 (“Mrs K’s PAYG amount”) and that the net amount ($13,602) had been credited to Mrs K’s loan account. The net amount was not actually paid to Mrs K, although the single touch payroll system generated a payslip showing a net wage of $13,602 had been paid to her for the week ending 29 March 2020.
The amount of the remuneration was based on 9 months’ service, but Mrs K’s PAYG amount was based on the relevant period being one week. In previous years, the company had not withheld PAYG amounts from payments to Mrs K.
The AAT agreed with the ATO that the company was not entitled to the cash flow boost in respect of Mrs K’s PAYG amount. This was because it had entered into a scheme for the dominant purpose of increasing its entitlement to the cash flow boost for the March 2020 period.
The AAT decided that various steps would not have occurred if the CFB had not existed, including: the decision to remunerate Mrs K in March and not, as previously, at the end of the income year; the decision on this occasion to withhold PAYG; and the decision to deduct a PAYG withholding amount on the basis that the relevant period was one week and not the 9 months on which the amount was based.
As a result, the company was only entitled to the cash flow boost in respect of PAYG amounts withheld from amounts paid to 6 arm’s-length employees.
(MJ and IT Holdings Pty Ltd v CofT [2021] AATA 3250, AAT, James SM, 8 September 2021.) [LTN 176, 13/9/21]
[Tax Month – September 2021] 3.10.21