Legal news
The State Revenue Office (SRO) have announced that its current “practical approach” in relation to whether trustees of discretionary trusts trigger the foreign duty surcharge will cease from 1 March 2020.
As outlined in our previous article, the State Revenue Further Amendment Bill 2019 (NSW) was introduced to NSW Legislative Assembly on Tuesday 22 October 2019, and proposed to make changes to New South Wales land tax and duty legislation.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) sought to address this question through a public determination (first issued in draft as TD 2018/D3) that considered a range of features of an arrangement, that when considered together, were deemed to have resulted in the creation of a new trust over assets formerly held by an original trust.
The Federal Government has introduced the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019 (Bill), which seeks to ensure that tax concessions available to minors on income on distributions by the trustee of a testamentary trust will only apply in respect of income that is generated from assets of the deceased estate transferred to that testamentary trust (or the proceeds of the disposal or investment of those assets).
As outlined in our previous article, under the proposed changes to New South Wales land tax and duty legislation, a trustee of a discretionary trust (including testamentary trusts) will be deemed to be a “foreign trust” if the terms of the trust do not prevent a foreign person from being a beneficiary of the discretionary trust. Importantly, these changes are proposed to have retrospective effect to the 2017, 2018 and 2019 land tax years and can catch dutiable transactions back to 21 June 2016.
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The Victorian Supreme Court in the decision of MD Commercial Pty Ltd & AJ Commercial Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue [2018] VSC 560 confirmed that certain transfers of land to trustees were not exempt from duty under section 35 of the Duties Act 2000.
We have previously written (see here and here) about the Tax Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan Base Rate Entities) Bill 2017 (the Bill) that proposes to deny the lower 27.5% corporate tax rate to corporate tax entities with less than $25 million of turnover that derive predominantly (80% or more) passive income (‘base rate entity passive income’) has not been debated by the Parliament since 12 February 2018.
On 15 August 2018, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) updated Practical Compliance Guideline (PCG) 2017/13 to extend its application to Division 7A sub-trust arrangements adopted in accordance with Practice Statement Law Administration 2010/4 (PS LA 2010/4) that mature in the 2019 income year.
In Ellison v Sandini Pty Ltd [2018] FCAFC 44, the Full Federal Court overturned decision which allowed Mr Sandini (the Taxpayer) to benefit from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) marriage breakdown rollover for the transfer of shares to an entity controlled by his former spouse, pursuant to a Family Court Order (FCO).
