Foreign person duty and land tax surcharges; Of particular interest is the application of the foreign trust provisions to discretionary trusts.

The Federal Court ordered that a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustee pay a fine of $40K and the ATO’s costs of $14K for various loans made by the SMSF trustee in breach of the super laws.

The recent Federal Court decision of Ievers v Superannuation Complaints Tribunal considered the question of whether a de facto relationship had ended for the purpose of determining who should receive a super death benefit.

The Fair Work Commission has recently issued a decision that will allow most employees to cash out some of their annual leave entitlements, based on altering the terms of modern awards. 

Sladen Legal’s Phil Broderick was recently invited to present at the Television Education Network’s 4th Annual SMSF Audit Conference. His topic was titled “Recent Tax and Regulatory Developments Affecting SMSF Audit”. 

In the latest instalment of a long running international battle between the Wild Geese and Wild Turkey alcohol brands, the Full Federal Court has found that trade mark owners can lose their registrations if they do not exercise proper control over their licensees.

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.

In its recent decision in The Executors of the Estate of the late Peter Fowler and Commissioner of Taxation, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) held that Mr Fowler was not entitled to apply the small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions in Division 152 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, on the sale of a block of 10 residential units (Manly Property) as he was not carrying on a business and the Manly Property did not qualify as an “active asset”.

The Victorian Government has passed legislation to increase the duty surcharge on purchasers of residential property by foreign persons to 7% for contracts entered into from 1 July 2016. The changes contain a number of other changes to the foreign purchaser duty regime. 

In in an unheralded move, the Victorian government has extended the land tax exemption for primary production land in an urban zone (contained in section 67 of the Land Tax Act 2005) to include land owned by a trustee of a super fund of which all the members or beneficiaries are relatives and at least one of those members or beneficiaries is normally engaged in a substantially full-time capacity in the business of primary production of the type carried on on the land.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) recently held in FLZY and Commissioner of Taxation that profit arising from the sale of a building by a family trust gave rise to a capital gain despite the property building, development and investment activities undertaken by the privately held family group (Group). 

On 7 June, 2016 Sladen Legal delivered an end-of-financial-year seminar on streaming issues and tips and traps for the new small business rollover.

The Civil Procedure Act 2010 (Act) provides the Court with a relatively broad power to make orders in respect of a person that has breached any overarching obligation in the Act. In particular, section 29 of the Act gives the Court the discretion to sanction parties and/or lawyers by making costs orders against them. Yara Australia Pty Ltd v Oswal  (Yara) is one of the most publicised cases to examine the scope of the Court’s discretion under section 29 of the Act. 

From 1 July, the national minimum wage will be increased by 2.4% (equating to an increase of $15.80 per week) and the new weekly minimum wage will be $672.70 (or $17.70 an hour) .

In an update on our previous Sladen Snippets (see here and here), the ATO has announced that the date for rectifying non-commercial related party limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans made to SMSF trustees has been extended from 30 June 2016 to 31 January 2017. 

In March 2016, Foreign trusts and foreigner duty surcharge written by Sladen Legal's Phil Broderick was published in the Tax Institute’s Journal, Taxation in Australia.

The Supreme Court of Victoria has recently handed down the first decision interpreting the ‘economic entitlement’ provisions in the Duties Act 2000 (Vic) (Duties Act). These provisions were introduced in 2012 as part of the shift from a “land rich” to a “landholder” model for assessing duty in Victoria on the acquisition of interests in certain land owning entities.

Further to our snippet in April the changes to the public trading trust rules have passed into law. 

Australia has for a long time been one of the only common law countries to enshrine a lawyer’s immunity from suit. The common law principle provides lawyers with an immunity from any claim made against them for negligence arising out of their conduct of a Court case and/or work undertaken outside of Court that results in a decision affecting the conduct of the case in Court.