TaxRambling.com

In a recent Federal Court case a person purchased a unit for their own private use. They knew the price, they were happy with the price, they paid the price… and then a class action looked at situations where the GST in the contract was different to the actual GST that had to be paid […]

When looking at deductions taxpayers in particular occupations and locations claim, the Commissioner uses, in real time, a comparison with what they call the taxpayer’s ‘nearest neighbour’. From this real time comparison with other taxpayers in the same industry and location the Commissioner actively prompt the taxpayer in real-time that their claims are out of […]

After announcing Labor: would not reduce the CGT discount to 25% as they proposed to do in the 2017 election, would not limit negative gearing to new housing as they proposed to do in the 2017 election, would not stop SMSFs claiming refundable imputation credits as they proposed to do in the 2017 election, and […]

Most Division 7A loans are repaid without a single bank transaction. They are typically made by way of set-off against a dividend declared by the company. But what are the requirements we need to follow to make these set offs legal?  Some people say that we do a journal that creates a dividend that equals […]

In WYPF and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation) [2021] AATA 3050 a developer in the ACT paid $14,000,000 (‘Monetary Consideration’) for the land to the ACT Land Development Authority, and also carried out certain works described as ‘Preparatory Works’ of $29,700,648.39 and other works described as ‘Building Works’ of $77,034,265.61.  The taxpayer wanted to include all these […]

Subsection 109D(3) gives the definition of what is a loan for the purposes of Division 7A. It has some pretty obvious definitions (“an advance of money” and “a payment of an amount … if there is an express or implied obligation to repay the amount”) and even has the wonderfully circular definition of “a transaction (whatever […]

Finally we have a Bill that proposes to remove the $250 non-deductible threshold for work-related self-education expenses. The $250 non-deductible threshold for self-education was introduced way back 1975 alongside a concessional tax rebate for expenditure on self-education. When the concessional rebate was repealed in 1985 the forgot to repeal the $250 non-deductible threshold. So 36 […]

Under JobKeeper, employees were paid $750 a week from their employee, but as taxable salary. Under its replacement, the so called “COVID-19 Disaster Payment”, employees who are in hot spot areas and who lose more than 20 hours a week get $750 a week paid to them by Services Australia (yes they have to apply […]

Yesterday I was reminded of my slackness in posting so here we go… Expenses for living at a location are usually not deductible. However, expenses incurred on accommodation and food and drink are usually deductible, or otherwise deductible, where an employee is working away from home for short periods of time. In these situations, an […]

I have avoided writing about the NSW (and any other Hotspot zone) disaster payments that people can apply for through MyGov if they lose more than 8 hours work a week. This is for the employees to get directly from Services Australia, and not from the employer, so I did not want to get into […]