Our latest insights

All organisations are grappling with the myriad of employee agreements and obligations that result in a wide variety of payments to their people.

In a world where a company’s tax payments (or lack thereof) are under increasing scrutiny, both the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Australian Accounting Standard Board are now enforcing new reporting obligations that will see companies disclose their “uncertain” tax positions in their annual tax returns and financial statements.

Legislation seeking to deny a deduction for the costs of holding Vacant Land (Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2019) has been amended by the Senate and subsequently approved by the House of Representatives on 22 October 2019.

We have seen many examples of taxpayers incorrectly claiming exemptions or unaware that their innocuous discretionary trust or testamentary trust is a “foreign person”. Land tax exemptions are based on self-assessment and many people and companies will believe they have self-assessed appropriately, but the exemptions can be complex and confusing, and they may not technically qualify.

The new rules will apply to individuals, trusts (which are not widely held) and to self-managed super funds (SMSF’s).

The GST treatment of food products has made the headlines over the last few months. Most notably the above front page of The Age earlier this year.

Treasurer Ben Wyatt delivered the Western Australian State Budget on 9 October 2020, the first of the State and Territory budgets of 2020.

Are you a property developer who has built new residential property to sell, but instead have had to lease them due to market conditions?

Financial reporting thresholds for ‘large’ proprietary companies have been doubled following a recent Australian legislative change which is effective for financial years commencing on or after 1 July 2019.

On 5 April 2019, the ATO released Draft Taxation Ruling, TR 2019/D2 to clarify how entities should utilise the ALDT (“the ALDT Draft Ruling”). This ruling applies retrospectively.

Practical Compliance Guide (PCG) 2018/9 provides a transition period for foreign incorporated companies to change their governance arrangements so that they do not become Australian residents solely because their central management and control (CM&C) is located in Australia.

Treasurer Ben Wyatt delivered the Western Australian State Budget on 9 May 2019. This Budget promotes jobs growth and encourages investment in key sectors of the economy.