Legal news
In Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Pedley (No 2) (2018) FCA 2015 (Pedley), the Federal Court confirmed the wide discretion available to the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) to allocate payments made to it for tax debts especially where the taxpayer has not provided explicit direction as to what payments should be applied to which debts.
The High Court in Commissioner of Taxation v Tomaras & Ors (2018) HCA 62 (Tomaras) has confirmed the Federal Circuit Court had jurisdiction to make orders altering the property interests of parties to a marriage substituting one party for the other party as sole debtor to the Commissioner of Taxation (Commissioner) in respect of income tax liabilities owed by the first party.
In the 2016-2017 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (http://www.budget.gov.au/2016-17/content/myefo/download/09-Appendix-A-Revenue.pdf), the Government announced that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) would be allowed to report to credit reporting agencies the tax debt information of entities that don’t effectively engage with the ATO to manage those tax debts.
