The [taxpayer] Mr Teissier made an application under s 40(1) of the Taxation Administration Act 2003 (WA) for the Tribunal to review a decision made by the Commissioner to reassess particular lots owned by him for land tax. Those lots had previously been assessed as being exempt from tax.
The taxpayer sought orders that the Commissioner provide, for each of the land tax assessment years from 1993-94 to 2012-13 (excluding 2010-11), further documents and information about the Commissioner’s past practices and interpretation in relation to exemptions granted under s 29(3) of the Land Tax Assessment Act 2002 (WA), where the owner and user of the land are different entities or persons, including, among other things, the number of instances where exemptions or concessions were granted where the owner and user were not the same entity or person.
The Tribunal said [the question of] whether or not the taxpayer was entitled to the documents he sought turned on the interpretation of s16(5) of the Taxation Administration Act 2003 (WA).
- The Tribunal determined that it only needed evidence of the interpretation of the applicable law or a particular practice of the Commissioner that was generally applied to assessments of the kind in question, during the relevant dates that the taxpayer’s lots were originally assessed as being exempt from land tax.
- It added the provision of documents and information about the Commissioner’s past practices and interpretation in relation to exemptions granted in the years between 1993 to 2013 sought by the taxpayer would be “onerous”.
(Teissier v Comr of State Revenue [2015] WASAT 8, WA State Administrative Tribunal, Curthoys P, 30 January 2015.)
[LTN 27, 11/2/15]