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In brief: In an important win for the Commissioner, the Federal Court has held that there was error by the AAT in valuing a 1/3rd holding of shares in a private company by discounting the sale price for a ‘lack of control’. The taxpayer was one of 3 equal shareholders in the company who together contracted to sell all the shares for a total price of $17.7M, with each shareholder receiving $5.9M. The market value of the taxpayer’s shares was critical in determining whether he satisfied the $6M net asset value test and was entitled to the small business CGT concessions.
More: This case involves 2 issues. The first is the precise identification of the relevant CGT asset or assets involved and the second is the determination of the market values of those assets for the purposes of s152-20. So that latter question necessarily involves principles of valuation law, in the context of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. And the case is very important, given the significance of market values in many areas of tax law.
Although commencing with the price actually received by the taxpayer, the AAT had discounted that price in recognition of the relative lack of control of a minority shareholder. It had done so on the basis that the contemporaneous sale of all shares owned by the other shareholders were ‘special circumstances’ that should be recognised in the valuation process. The Court disagreed and held in any case that the AAT had erred by not having regard to market realities and the recognition in valuation principles of a buyer willing to pay more for an asset than others ‘because they are in a better position to exploit the particular attributes or potentialities of the asset’. (FC of T v Miley [2017] FCA 1396)
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.
