The article explains the arguments contained in the parties’ submissions to the High Court in the appeal by the Commissioner of Taxation (Commissioner) from the Full Federal Court’s (Full Court) decision in Commissioner of Taxation v Bendel [2025] FCAFC 15 (Bendel). 

In the 2023-24 Budget, the Government announced that the super guarantee framework will be reformed to align the payment of super guarantee contributions with an employee’s regular pay cycle, instead of the current quarterly requirements. 

The exposure draft legislation for the new ‘Payday Super’ rules has now been released, with consultation open until 11 April 2025.

The super guarantee charge, payable where employers fail to make contributions in full and on time, will be updated, including a new ‘administrative uplift’ component of up to 60% of the shortfall amount.

In the decision of QWYN and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation and business) [2025] ARTA 83 the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) has determined that regular disability payments described as a superannuation income stream was a superannuation income stream for tax purposes and not a number of (more tax concessionally treated) disability lump sums.

On 19 February 2025, the Full Federal Court, in FCT v Bendel [2025] FCAFC 15 (Bendel), held that an unpaid present entitlement (UPE) with a corporate beneficiary is not a loan under subsection 109D(3) of Division 7A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA 1936).

The ATO has finalised its practical compliance guidance Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2024/3 (Guideline) to clarify how the ATO will apply its compliance resources in relation to the application of section 99B when Australian residents receive payments or benefits from non-resident trusts. The guideline outlines common scenarios, record-keeping expectations, and low-risk arrangements.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) recently issued two key updates that could affect private groups using guarantee-backed financial arrangements.

Is the payment of a death benefit to a spouse’s estate tax free? The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has released a Private Binding Ruling 1052273158502 (PBR) in which it determined that it was not under section 302-10(2) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 97).

Over the course of the last year, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has repeatedly indicated in various forums that advisors are in the ATO’s sights.

In the decision of In the matter of Gainer Associates Pty Limited [2024] NSWSC 1138, the Court amongst other things gave advice to uphold the decision of the self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustee to distribute 1/3rd of the death benefits in the SMSF to a partner of the sole surviving SMSF member and 2/3rd to her estate.

This Decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is a series of decisions against five jockey racing clubs brought by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) regarding whether the racing clubs must pay super contributions on behalf of jockeys under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (SG Act).

On 17 January 2024, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) issued a revised draft taxation ruling, TR 2024/D1, which addresses the taxation implications of payments relating to software distribution arrangements.

The ATO has a new collaborative and tailored approach to managing the collection and recovery of disputed debts.

The ATO has taken an aggressive approach on non-arm’s length income (NALI) for a number of years now, both in its public documents and via its audit teams. This has culminated in an approach that puts a high expectation on SMSF’s in relation to proving arrangements are on an arm’s length basis – in particular, in relation to benchmarking such arrangements.

The ATO’s attacks on SMSFs conducting property development continues! The ATO has released Taxpayer Alert TA 2023/2 (the Alert) confirming that the ATO will review arrangements where related entities of a SMSF are conducting a property development (or including where property development is undertaken on SMSF owned assets) and where a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is used. The SPV being a company or trust which will be a related party to the SMSF through which generally a member of the SMSF may provide property development services to the SMSF for a commercial arm’s length fee and acquire and manage building materials used for the development.

As a result of recent changes to the work test, a technical deficiency was identified, such that, persons who are not common law employees, like directors and politicians, could no longer make personal deductible superannuation contributions.

In an interesting development, the ATO has released a warning in relation to SMSFs entering into gift and loan back arrangements.

On 23 November 2022, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) released Taxation Ruling TR 2022/3, finalising its views on personal services income (PSI) and personal services businesses (PSB).

On 19 September 2022, Justice Thawley of the Federal Court handed down his decision in BBlood Enterprises Pty Ltd v FCT [2022] FCA 1112 (BBlood), the most recent decision on section 100A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) was successful in arguing that section 100A applied.

We wrote about Draft Taxation Determination TD 2022/D1 (Draft TD) on Division 7A and unpaid present entitlements (UPEs) here. On 12 July 2022, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) finalised the Draft TD as Taxation Determination TD 2022/11 (Final TD).