The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’) has upheld the Commissioner’s decision to disallow input tax credits relating to property developments. Facts The Taxpayer carried on a property development enterprise, and claimed about $1.95 million in input tax credits in relation to four property developments in Western Australia for earthworks and related services provided, and invoiced, [...]
The high Court, in a unanimous decision, has ruled that the income of a civil engineer who worked the United Nations Office of Project Services (‘UNOPS’) in the Sudan was not exempt from being taxed in Australia. Facts The Taxpayer (Mr Jayasinghe, a qualified civil engineering) was an Australian resident during the relevant income years, [...]
The following are messages and reminders to practitioners which have been received from the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) during the past month Renewal processing times The TPB currently has many new registration applications to process, so practitioners may experience some delays in having their renewal applications processed over the next few months. However, the TPB [...]
The ATO finds businesses tend to forget to update their Australian Business Number (ABN) details in the Australian Business Register (ABR) when their circumstances or details change. Practitioners can do a few things to help keep their clients’ ABN details up to date and reduce unnecessary contact from the ATO. Check ABN’s are still in [...]
A new message will appear on the notice of assessment of primary producer clients when it is their first year of income for averaging calculations The ATO made this change due to practitioner feedback that it would be useful, and to show when primary producers automatically re-enter averaging. The ATO will notify on their 2017 [...]
The ATO has reminded primary producers that may be entitled to claim a deduction for capital expenditure incurred on their fencing assets and fodder storage assets. Specifically, if a taxpayer incurred capital expenditure on a fencing asset: From 7.30pm AEST, 12 May 2015 (expect if the expenditure relates to a stockyard, pen or portable fence) [...]
Editor; The following are taken from various ATO updates directed towards not-for-profits Have you checked your endorsement and tax status? According to the ATO, not-for-profit (NFP) organisations should review their income tax status on a regular basis, and they recommend this be reviewed: Once a year; or When there is a major change to the [...]
The ATO has developed a GST and residential care guide to help residential care service providers understand and meet their GST obligations. The guide: Outlines the requirements for aged and disabled residential care services to be GST free and Includes information about government funded residential care, non-government funded residential care, accommodation and services apartments
The Australian Business Register (ABR) no longer needs to wait to cancel the ABN of a deregistered company ABN cancellation will now happen as soon as ASIC lets the ATO know the company is deregistered (I.e; the ABN cancellation is not effective from the date of deregistration)
Under normal bulk processes, the ATO generally issues activity statements by the end of the relevant month, allowing the statement to be lodged by 21 days after the end of the month, or 28 days after the relevant quarter (as appropriate) However, the ATO recognizes that there may be a specific reason for a taxpayer [...]
The ATO has reminded practitioners that there are many reasons why it may be necessary to review and amend a trust deed, such as legislative changes. They recommend, before amending a trust deed, to check if there is a power of amendment within the deed. If there is a power of amendment, the following should [...]
The ATO has provided an update on the progress of remissions of failure to lodge (FTL) on time penalties on eligible obligations (as announced by the commissioner in July), AS Follows: 2016 tax returns – remissions have started to issue; Activity statements lodged from December 2016 up to 31 August 2017 – remissions in progress [...]
A limited release of Single Touch Payroll began for a small number of digital service providers and their clients on 1 July 2017, with Single Touch Payroll operating with limited functionality for a select number of employers. The ATO also added a menu option ‘manage Employees’ to the portals in June 2017, in readiness for [...]
This year is a new message in the Tax Agent Portal pre-Filling Report, which will display if work-related expenses claimed in a client’s 2016 tax return were high in comparison to clients in similar occupations and income rang in the prior year The ATO says this will help practitioners identify whether their deductions require closer [...]
Negative gearing A rental property is said to be 'negatively geared' where the deductible expenses (including interest on the loan borrowed to finance the property) exceed the income earned from the property. The overall tax result of a negatively geared property is a net rental loss. In this case, you may be able to claim [...]
