Author: Ken Mansell
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Employee Share Schemes – 4 simple rules…
The Commissioner has released a draft taxation determination on employee share schemes. While this draft determination relates a to employees who get a beneficial interest in a share subject to shareholder approval (this does not come within the employee share scheme rules) it is a great time to summarise the employee share scheme rules. Simply,…
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Gardening leave and personal services income
I never thought I would read the term “gardening leave” in a tax ruling but it is the main issue in draft taxation determination TD 2014/D15. The issue is whether the payment you get while you are on gardening leave (which if you don’t know is when you are told to go home, work in…
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Am I cool if I say Bitcoin?
I live in a town of less than 400,000 people and I just saw a Bitcoin ATM. I don’t know who to use it but how cool am I for living near a Bitcoin ATM… The Commissioner also is cool as he has released his thoughts on the tax treatment of Bitcoin transaction. In summary,…
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Julia Gillard’s tax legacy
This is a policy rant so if you care about what the current tax law is, and don’t care what it could have been, then save yourself some time and don’t read this… This week we have both the release of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s biography telling us about her valuable legacy and her…
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35-55 and non commercial losses discretion
Given it happens so infrequently, I thought I should mention a case where the AAT has required the Commissioner to exercise his discretion to not apply the non commercial losses rule in Division 35 of the ITAA97. In AAT Case [2014] AATA 620, Re Bentivoglio v FCT a medical doctor earning over $250,000 (so could…
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Divorce and Dividends #2
The Commissioner has released a fact sheet on when a payment or in specie transfer from private company to an individual under matrimonial proceedings can be a dividend or a deemed divided. I have discussed this before but there are some interesting examples in this fact sheet: First the simple case… Tim, Helene and a…
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Policy all at sea…
Have you heard about the Seafarers Tax Offset… Probably not… This is a 30% refundable tax offset paid to companies that employ seafarers on the salary they pay their seafaring employees. It is effectively a promise to pay 30% of the salaries of these seafaring employees. Some bright spark thought this would “stimulate opportunities for…
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Instant Asset Write Off Clarity – Successful negotiation with a PUP
I know I should wait until the Bill goes back to the House of Reps this evening to confirm the Senate amendments before writing this post but… From 1 January 2014 (installed ready for use from this date) the instant asset write off for small businesses is $1,000 (down from $6,500). Also, there is no…
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Partnerships of Discretionary Trusts on the nose…
Late last year the Commissioner released a Taxpayer Alert on the use of partnerships of discretionary trust by professional practices to avoid tax. In the Taxpayer Alert late last year the Commissioner stated that he was concerned that the dominant purpose for setting up a partnership of discretionary trusts for a professional practice was to…
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Economists advising us on tax again…
Peter Martin, the economics editor at the Age writes… “The finance minister is two-thirds right. He says if the government can’t balance its books by cutting spending, “the only alternative to balance the books is to increase taxes. There’s only one other option. It’s neither an increase in tax nor a cut in spending. It’s…
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