A taxpayer has been unsuccessful before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in seeking remission of interest imposed by the Commissioner in a land tax assessment notice issued in respect of the 2009 to 2013 land tax years.
- The Commissioner’s case was that the taxpayer had committed tax defaults by failing to furnish land tax returns for the 2009 and 2013 land tax years.
- The taxpayer contended that no interest was payable.
- The taxpayer’s grounds were that “the OSR did not ask if [it] was a trust; [it] did not receive any letter asking for such information; the OSR disregarded writing on a contract that stated the owner was a trust; [it] was not aware that the original assessments [which had applied tax free thresholds] were not correct; and [it] was not aware that there were no tax free thresholds for trusts.”
- Among other things, the taxpayer also contended the Commissioner must have known that all property purchases by the taxpayer were as trustee of a trust as the OSR had stamped the trust deed of the trust.
On the evidence before it, the Tribunal held the taxpayer had failed to comply with its obligations to furnish land tax returns for each of the relevant years as required by the Land Tax Management Act 1956 (NSW). It also held the taxpayer had committed a tax default in each of the years in question and therefore interest was payable in respect of such tax default. The Tribunal was not of the view that the Commissioner had contributed to the tax default and furthermore, it did not regard the stamped trust deed as imposing any relevant obligation on the Commissioner.
(Laviva Nominees Pty Ltd v Chief Comr of State Revenue [2014] NSWCATAD 84, NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Isenberg SM, 20 June 2014.)
[LTN 128, 7/7/14]