Tax Facts contains news and alerts relating to tax practice, for the benefit of accountants and other professionals in public practice. Please click on the links below for recent issues. You may also like to peruse Tax Facts by topic category - topics are listed below to the right.
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In brief: The New South Wales Supreme Court has held that a disclaimer of his interest as a discretionary trust object was valid to retrospectively end a person’s rights to benefit from the time those rights were created. This was sufficient to break the payroll tax grouping between several entities controlled by 2 brothers, the group determined by the Chief Commissioner having included a company in liquidation with substantial outstanding payroll tax assessments.
More: This case is another that confirms the enthusiasm by State payroll tax authorities for the grouping of entities. Grouping is a very useful mechanism for those authorities since each member of a group is jointly and severally liable for the payroll tax liabilities of all group members. And discretionary trust objects are typically deemed to have more than a 50% interest, readily enabling grouping through broad beneficiary classes in discretionary trusts. That is the real issue – having extraordinarily wide beneficiary classes is an outdated practice that creates problems, rather than serving any useful purpose. And that is why Tax Strategies’ trusts are created quite differently and will not facilitate payroll tax grouping through such tenuous connections. (Smeaton Grange Holdings Pty Ltd v Chief Commissioner of State Revenue (NSW) [2016] NSWSC 1594)
In brief: The Full Federal Court has held that there was no error by the AAT in concluding that the $2M turnover test had not been satisfied and that, consequently, no small business CGT concessions applied on the sale of mining tenements. The case turned on whether disbursements totalling $55,106 for fuel costs under 2 contracts constituted ‘*ordinary income that the entity *derives in the income year in the ordinary course of carrying on a *business.’ (s 328-120(1)). The AAT had held that receipts from fuel disbursements were ordinary income, despite the normal practice that customers of the drilling contractor provided fuel and the initial contracts for the 2 relevant drilling jobs required the customers to provide fuel.
More: The taxpayer’s drilling company was a ‘connected entity’ and had undertaken drilling exploration on the mining tenements from which the taxpayer derived the capital gain. And the Commissioner had accepted that the basic conditions for the small business CGT concessions would have been satisfied if the drilling company’s annual turnover had been less than $2M for the previous year of income. This case continues the steady stream relating to the small business CGT concessions and illustrates how important it is to step through each of the relevant tests for the concessions in fine detail. (Doutch v Commissioner of Taxation [2016] FCAFC 166)
In brief: Company liquidators have successfully argued that the participation by directors (including a de facto director) in a tax evasion scheme breached various directors’ duties. The scheme involved back-to-back loans into Australia with untaxed offshore funds accumulated by the brothers who built the Nudie juice business. Tax debts owing by the companies were held to be part of the losses caused by such breaches and were consequently recoverable from the directors by the liquidators.
More: This case is the latest in a number involving the Binetter family, arising from Project Wickenby. It illustrates a relatively novel approach to the collection of tax debts owing by presumably insolvent companies, establishing a pathway for liquidators direct to the directors. The case is also a good reminder that it is a mistake to focus solely on tax laws, including in relation to legitimate tax planning arrangements – many arrangements are undone not by failings necessarily related to tax, but instead related to aspects of the general law. (BCI Finances Pty Ltd (in liq) v Binetter (No 4) [2016] FCA 1351)
In brief: The Commissioner has issued several draft Law Companion Guidelines in relation to the super reforms commencing on 1 July 2017. Two relate to defined benefit interests but the other 2 are particularly relevant to SMSFs. LCG 2016/D8 covers the transitional CGT relief for assets supporting exempt income streams and which are affected by the $1.6M transfer balance cap or loss of exemption relating to TRIS pensions. LCG 2016/D9 provides guidance about how the $1.6M transfer balance cap operates for account based income streams.
More: These LCGs will be useful in helping practitioners digest the new reforms and their implications for clients in various circumstances. That will include potential impacts on estate planning, particularly where reversionary pensions will cause the $1.6M cap to be exceeded after the death of a primary pensioner (although there will be a 12 month window to adjust benefits for the reversionary pensioner in that case). In addition to decisions about potential rearrangements relating to existing income streams and adopting the transitional CGT relief, planning prior to 1 July 2017 should also include maximising both concessional and non-concessional contributions where appropriate.
Tax planning arrangements can fail for a number of reasons. One of those reasons has little to do with technical tax rules. With a real-life example, this episode of Tax Solutions illustrates how tax planning can go wrong because of a fatal legal flaw in the underlying transactions or circumstances on which the tax plan is based. With the result that the practitioner involved is highly exposed.
The small business CGT concessions provide very substantial benefits in situations where they apply. And given the policy intent to direct the concessions to business assets, one of the central conditions that must normally be satisfied is the ‘active asset test’.
This episode of Tax Solutions emphasises a class of CGT assets that achieve a special status for the purposes of the small business CGT concessions. Those assets continue as active assets indefinitely – retaining that status even long after they have ceased being used in any business controlled by the owners!
Widely drafted beneficiary classes in discretionary trusts can create headaches in dealing with various State taxes. A recent example is Victoria’s new 3% additional duty on foreign buyers of residential property – where a trustee is the buyer and a family beneficiary lives overseas. A starker example that applies in all States and Territories is payroll tax grouping of businesses controlled by family relatives, where at least one of the businesses is operated by a discretionary trust.
Having extraordinarily wide beneficiary classes is an outdated practice that creates problems, rather than serving any useful purpose. There is really no point in including a whole range of relatives who are never intended to benefit. A narrow class of beneficiaries is required, with a simple and practical mechanism to add others to whom it is desired to distribute.
Frustrations with ATO views about UPEs of corporate beneficiaries have led to companies more frequently being used to acquire and operate small and medium sized businesses. But the problem is not discretionary trusts owning businesses, it is Division 7A. And there will usually be ways to deal with Division 7A anyway.
Some advisers believe that a business owner can still access the small business CGT concessions on a future business sale, by selling shares in the company that owns the business. But how realistic is it to hope that that is the way things will turn out. This edition of Tax Solutions emphasises 2 reasons why clients with a business owned by a company may not actually benefit from the CGT concessions.
One of the best things you will ever do for some of your small business clients is to deliberately trigger a CGT event and capture the small business CGT concessions. In the right client circumstances, this strategy can produce several very substantial benefits. That will particularly be so if 100% CGT exemptions can be achieved without duty applying to the transaction.
A restructure for this purpose should always be kept in mind, particularly for clients who may grow to the point where they can no longer satisfy either the $2M turnover test or $6M net asset value test. But it warrants greater consideration at the moment, given the apparent increased political risk of changes to CGT concessions.
