Month: February 2014
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Working on the other end of the phone…
I have worked in accounting firms, as the tax manager for a corporate or two, in the Treasury writing tax law, as a tax lobbyist and trainer for the Chartered Accountants and in parliament house advising the Treasurer on tax… So I only have one last thing to ad to my tax CV – I […]
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Adam, Eve and Family Trust Elections
In ATOID 2014/3 the Commissioner states that the individual specified in the Family Trust Election must be alive at the time the trustee of the trust makes the election. He comes to this conclusion after finding the term “individual” is not defined and takes a very loose analysis of the various dictionary definitions. So why […]
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Cash to accruals gets taxed
In ATOID 2014/1 (http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?docid=%22AID%2FAID20141%2F00001%22) the Commissioner considers the following facts… “The taxpayer carries on a business of providing services to clients. The taxpayer had previously accounted for the income of the business on a cash basis. Due to the nature and growth of the taxpayer’s business, the taxpayer decides it is more appropriate for the […]
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Let us have a moment of silence for the GST advisors…
Since the introduction of the GST they (GST Advisors) have always been looking for a way to recover GST paid incorrectly. And the Holy Grail of this advice has always been how can we turn a supply of new residential premises into existing residential premises as this would increase the margin for the developer by […]
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Australia as a family budget
When you are talking about billions of dollars of taxes, expenditures, debt and deficits it all gets a bit confusing. So using the 2013/14 MYEFO updated estimate this is what Australia would be like if it was the average Australian family. To start, according to the 2011 Census the median household income after tax is […]
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The Commissioner and the good Samaritan
I am one of those Jesus freaks so when i hear about “good samaritan laws” – being those that compel a person to help or be penalised – i think they missed the whole idea of what made him good. That he was not compelled but did it out of love. Do you love the […]
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Avoid a trust audit
The Commissioner has told you how to get you trust audited (http://www.ato.gov.au/Forms/Labels-53A-and-54W-in-the-2013-trust-tax-return/). Either don’t complete labels 53A and 54W or make these two labels as different as you can. One of these labels is trust income and one is tax income (section 95 net income). If they are different the Commissioner states he is looking […]
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The coffee is just awful!
Why are there no posts recently??? Disneyworld, Legoland and the Kennedy Space Centre… But the worst thing about being in Florida according to my wife is the coffee. And then she saw the answer – Starbucks. Due to tax, Starbucks should be good coffee. Why? Starbuck pays almost no tax in the US or Australia. […]
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