The Full Federal Court has unanimously dismissed the taxpayer’s appeal from the decision in AAT Case [2012] AATA 557, Re Murray and FCT (No 3) in which the AAT affirmed amended assessments issued to a taxpayer for the 1999 to 2007 income years which increased his assessable income by some $25m and imposed shortfall penalties of some id=”mce_marker”1m. The assessments were based was on information that was illegally obtained from a former employee of a Liechtenstein bank which indicated that the taxpayer had established a trust account at the bank which he controlled from Australia, and of which he was the primary beneficiary.
In dismissing the taxpayer’s appeal, the Full Court found that the taxpayer had raised no questions of law in relation to the issues that had been decided by the AAT and nor did the AAT’s decision contain any error of law or involve any procedural unfairness. These issues related to whether the taxpayer was presently entitled to the income (the Full Court also noted that the taxpayer had not produced any relevant evidence) and whether the AAT had erred in concluding it was not enough for the taxpayer to show the assessments were excessive, but that he also bore the burden of showing what they should have been.
In addition, the Full Court found there were no questions of law involved in its finding regarding the taxpayer’s residence status in a particular year and that it had not erred in refusing to allow the taxpayer to give evidence by video link from Singapore (where he then resided) given that his credit was “very much in issue”, nor was there any procedural unfairness in the manner in which the AAT exercised its discretion in the circumstances.
(Mulherin v FCT [2013] FCAFC 115, Full Federal Court, Edmonds, Griffiths and Pagone JJ, 23 October 2013.)
[LTN 206, 24/10/13]