Not so, said the Full Federal Court. In a case involving the Tax Office, Esso and BHP (Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd v FCT(1)) the Full Federal Court dismissed the Commissioner’s application for adjournment...

Question: An article in a recent newspaper reported that shares such as speculative mining shares purchased for resale at a gain are not eligible for the CGT discount. It went on to state that the discount is only available for shares delivering both income and capital gains. Is that correct? Was this intended? I am sure this would not be practised by taxpayers or tax agents.

Question from Stuart: If you attempt to make a binding nomination to a non-dependant sibling, how and when would you find out that it is not valid?

There are no automatic grouping provisions in the GST legislation. If you have more than one entity (partnerships, companies or trusts) in your business group, you will have to account for GST payable and input tax credits on all inter-entity transactions...

Breaching the convention not to process retrospective legislation changes that are damaging to tax payers, the Government has legislation before parliament to change the date of issue of Director Penalty Notice...

In the three months to 30 September, creditor-initiated Court liquidations were up by nearly 34% and receivership appointments up by 13%. Very high numbers of director-initiated corporate insolvencies were also the result of ...

If a company doesn’t remit PAYG Withholding, those who were directors of the company at the time of the failure can be personally liable for a penalty equal to the unremitted PAYG. The Tax Office must first serve a Director’s Penalty Notice (DPN) ...

To the congratulations of other countries, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has succeeded in getting the carbon tax legislation through Parliament. She has furthermore announced that the Liberal/National Party Coalition will be unable to repeal the legislation if elected...

More trees have been cut down and the paperwork burden substantially increased with the introduction of the mining tax legislation. The full name is the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) and comprises five Bills which were introduced into the House of Representatives on 2 November...

Operating a business exposes the owner to risks including statutory penalties, business debts and common law damages. Holding assets in the name of a spouse...

For 2011/12, large companies might be selected by the Tax Office to complete a Reportable Tax Position Schedule where they must disclose their most contestable and material tax circumstances...

The Tax Office publishes small business benchmarks using data collated from income tax returns lodged by more than 100 different types of businesses. These have been updated recently with data from the 2008/09 financial year...

FBT is not charged on a number of items which are predominantly used for business purposes. These include laptop and other portable computers, protective clothing, briefcases, calculators, tools of trade, business related software...

Wow! Jessica Irvine of the Sydney Morning Herald estimates the cost of complying with our tax system at 2.1% of our Gross Domestic Product (or equates that to 12% of the tax revenue collected). On that basis and noting that for the year ended June 2011, the Australian Bureau of Statistics measures our GDP at $1.39 trillion, the cost of tax compliance in Australia is $29 billion ...

If equity in the family business should only flow in bloodlines (spouses of family members may not own equity), you can implement a compulsory buy/sell agreement where the spouse ...

Commentators are suggesting an eventual decrease in demand for raw materials over coming years. Will this see a correction to the two speed economy? In September taxInsight we discussed some possible challenges in China’s economy and a report in the Australian Financial Review about a possible impact on the Australian mining industry in the event of a significant tightening of ...

Colours have immediate effects on our thoughts, feelings and actions. Carefully select combinations of colours elicit the desired thoughts and actions; black for authority, white for purity, and the “safety” of bright light; grey is for ...

The Housing Industry Association says that taxes comprise 44% (or $268,000) of the cost of new housing in New South Wales and 30% of the cost of new housing in Brisbane and Melbourne. Taxes on new housing include stamp duty, infrastructure charges from local councils and ...