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01st Feb, 2018
The ATO has become aware that its guidelines on Everett assignments and the allocation of profits within professional firms are being misinterpreted for some higher-risk arrangements, including the use of related-party financing and self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs).
The guidelines have been suspended from 14 December 2017 to allow the ATO to consult with stakeholders on replacement guidelines.
Anyone considering new arrangements beginning after the cut-off date should contact the ATO to discuss the arrangement risk profile and the possibility of a private ruling.
Arrangements beginning before the cut-off date that comply with the guidelines and do not exhibit high risk factors shouldn’t require action, but arrangements with high risk factors may be subject to ATO review.
01st Feb, 2018
Legislation has been passed to implement the 2017–2018 Federal Budget housing affordability measures. The following will start on 1 July 2018:
01st Feb, 2018
The ATO has issued guidance for employers on determining an employee’s private use of a vehicle.
Draft Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2017/D14 should provide more certainty and transparency about the circumstances where the ATO won’t apply compliance resources to investigating whether private vehicle use meets the car-related FBT exemptions.
Eligible employers who rely on this guideline won’t need to keep records to prove that an employee’s private use of a vehicle is minor, infrequent and irregular.
01st Feb, 2018
The ATO has issued a long-awaited ruling on trust vesting, including changing a trust’s vesting date and the CGT and income tax consequences of vesting.
The key points in the draft ruling are that:
01st Feb, 2018
The Federal Government has released draft legislation and a draft legislative instrument that, when passed, will authorise the ATO to disclose a business’s tax debt to registered credit reporting bureaus where the business has not effectively engaged with the ATO to manage the debt.
The draft legislation intends to place tax debts on a similar footing as other debts, to encourage timely payment or engagement with the ATO for businesses that want to avoid having their debt information affect their creditworthiness. Disclosure to credit reporting bureaus will only be permitted if the ATO has given the taxpayer at least 21 days’ notice beforehand.
01st Feb, 2018
The ATO has made a new determination that dividend equivalent payments made under an employee share scheme (ESS) are assessable to an employee as income when they receive the payment for or in connection with services they provide as an employee.
A “dividend equivalent payment” is a cash payment to an employee participant and beneficiary an ESS funded from dividends on which the trustee has been assessed in previous income years because no beneficiary of the trust was entitled to the income at the time.
A trustee that makes a dividend equivalent payment under an ESS must withhold an amount from the payment, even though the trustee is not the employee’s employer.
The new determination applies to dividend equivalent payments paid under the terms and conditions attached to ESS interests granted on or after 1 January 2018.