The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has released for public comment draft Practical Compliance Guideline (PCG) 2017/D12, which gives guidance to the legal personal representative (LPR) of a deceased person as to circumstances where the LPR may be personally liable for the deceased’s tax liability.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016 was recently passed by the Senate containing amendments to progressively reduce the corporate tax rate and increase the small business turnover thresholds for access to small business tax concessions. 

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) has recently held that tax losses were not available to a partner in a property development partnership.

In Behman v Behman [2016] NSWCA 295, the Supreme Court of NSW confirmed the primary judge’s finding that the respondent was entitled to an equitable proprietary estoppel founded on the basis of the appellant’s representations of him having an interest in the family property. 

On 6 September, 2016 Sladen Legal delivered an event titled Complex estate planning in a complex world.

In it the following issues were examined:

In the April 2016 Edition of the Taxation Institute’s journal ‘Taxation in Australia’, appeared an article entitled ‘Disclaimer of an interest in a trust – can this be tax effective?’ 

In May 2016, " Creating Entitlements in Discretionary Trusts " written by Sladen Legal's Amanda Morton was published in the Tax Institute’s Journal, Taxation in Australia.

n Fischer & Ors v Nemeske Pty Ltd & Ors ([2016] HCA 11; [2014] NSWSC 203), the High Court yesterday upheld the decisions of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Court of Appeal.

The High Court’s decision confirmed that the resolution of a trustee of a discretionary trust to distribute an amount equal to the value of shares owned by the trustee to a beneficiary (Nemes) created a debt payable upon demand enforceable against the trustee by Nemes’ executor upon Nemes’ death.

On 16 February, 2016 Sladen Legal delivered a presentation on Asset Protection Strategies.

Topics presented were:

• Protecting distributions, gifts and loans including the use of gift and loan arrangements – by Rob Jeremiah;
• Super contributions and asset protection – including the bankruptcy clawback rules – by Phil Broderick;
• Secured intra-family group loans and the Family Court – by Daniel Smedley.

Handouts from the presentation are now available to download.

Further information on SMSFs and Asset Protection are available from a presentation delivered by Phil Broderick, on SMSFs and Asset Protection, as part of the Television Education Network’s 3rd Annual Asset Protection Conference, on 15 October 2015.

The very public dispute between mining magnate Gina Rinehart and her children over access to family wealth held in a Family Trust came to a head this year, when the NSW Supreme Court appointed one of Gina’s 4 children (Bianca) as the new trustee of the Family Trust in place of Gina. 

The Family Trust, in effect, owned a 24% shareholding in Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (HPPL) and HHPL owned all the shares in the company which has an interest in an iron ore mine at Hope Downs.  Bianca and her brother, John, had issued court proceedings against their mother to remove her as trustee so they could access their share of the Trust’s assets.