Legal news
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.
The Full Federal Court in Hart v FCT affirmed the Federal Court’s decision in Paule v FCT that the capital gains tax (CGT) discount did not apply to the sale of shares owned by a trust.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) recently released Taxation Determinations TD 2019/D6 and TD 2019/D7 (together the Determinations) that concern Australian discretionary trusts distributing capital gains to foreign beneficiaries.
Primary producers in Melbourne will soon be faced with a greater likelihood of paying land tax on their farms due to the proposed reform, and narrowing, of the primary production land tax exemption as proposed in the State Taxation Acts Further Amendment Bill 2019.
On 6 February 2019, and as previously reported here, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) withdrew its longstanding public guidance that a company could forgive a debt for “natural love and affection” under the exception in the commercial debt forgiveness rules (CDF Rules) in Division 245. At that time, the ATO said it is developing guidance on the issue.
On 24 September 2019, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) updated its guidance on “Assessing the risk: allocation of profits within professional firms”.
The Victorian Supreme Court’s decision in favour of the taxpayer has been overturned by the Victorian Court of Appeal. We have previously discussed the Victorian Supreme Court decision.
The government’s previously announced amnesty for unpaid superannuation guarantee payments, which lapsed will the calling of the previous election, has been reintroduced into parliament in the in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill 2019.
