A taxpayer has been unsuccessful before the Federal Court in challenging a decision of the AAT, which had varied the Commissioner’s decisions concerning GST assessments covering 6 quarterly tax periods from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2010.
The taxpayer operated (via a unit trust) a business of repairing, maintaining and hiring motor vehicles. The AAT concluded that the GST assessments were excessive after the Commissioner conceded certain claims. However, the AAT held some of the relevant transactions were not creditable acquisitions because no goods or services were acquired or because the acquisitions were “non-deductible expenses”.
Broadly, the taxpayer’s appeal centred on “unchallenged invoices” (“petty cash invoices”), which were argued to represent creditable acquisitions. The invoices were said to be “unchallenged” as the Commissioner had failed to cross-examine the taxpayer on each of those invoices.
However, the Federal Court rejected the taxpayer’s submission. It said the taxpayer bore the onus of establishing that each acquisition was a creditable acquisition.
It also held that none of the taxpayer’s “questions” raised a question of law arising from the AAT decision, but in substance sought to challenge the AAT’s findings of fact. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.
(RV Investments (Aust) Pty Ltd as Trustee of the RV Unit Trust v FCT [2014] FCA 1169, Federal Court, Gordon J, 5 November 2014.)
[LTN 217, 10/11/14]