A recent Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) decision highlights the consequences for financial advisers when they fail to meet their service obligations. Under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (CA) financial advisers are required to ‘act in the best interests of the client’ and ‘must only provide advice if it would be reasonable to conclude that [read more]
Overview A new commercial and industrial property (C&I Property) tax of 1% p.a. applies in Victoria from 1 July 2024. This new tax will be levied on the land’s unimproved value and is payable in addition to any land tax. Duty on the purchase of C&I Property will be phased out. This article reflects the guidance [read more]
This question and answer sheet was prepared following a recent webinar on VRLT presented by DBA Lawyers. A number of queries were raised at this webinar. This Q&A is a summary of the key queries with brief answers. Naturally, we would be pleased to assist with any query. Q-1. Can VRLT be tax deductible? A-1. [read more]
Overview Unless a discretionary trust deed excludes foreign persons, foreign trustees and foreign corporations, significant additional duty and land tax is typically imposed if the trust acquires residential property. The best way to minimise such tax is to make sure you obtain assistance from a quality supplier and obtain advice well in advance. Why did [read more]
Overseas property may appear as an attractive investment on the surface. However, when an SMSF is the purchaser there are several compliance traps for trustees to navigate. SMSF trustees can purchase property either outright with SMSF funds or via a limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA). To illustrate the potential risks involved, each of these types [read more]
DBA Lawyers is pleased to announce our SMSF Staff Discount Policy. We have been assisting many firms in relation to documenting an appropriate SMSF staff discount policy and providing training in relation to managing non-arm’s length income (NALI) and non-arm’s length expenditure (NALE) issues. For a recent webinar outlining the issues relating to SMSF discount [read more]
ASIC recently took action against a number of approved SMSF auditors. ASIC felt that the approved SMSF auditors’ conduct did not meet the required standards and the action taken by ASIC included: disqualifying some auditors; imposing additional conditions on some approved SMSF auditors ; and cancelling the registration of other approved SMSF auditors. For more [read more]
In an urgent matter brought to Shariff J as the vacation duty judge this January, the risks to SMSF compliance, where all members of the fund become disqualified persons, were on full display with orders needing to be granted simply to allow the disqualified members to act to wind up the fund. The case, Barry, in [read more]
The ATO has recently released TR 2023/4 – Income tax: pay as you go withholding – who is an employee? (Ruling), as well as Practical Compliance Guideline 2023/2 (PCG) to provide additional guidance in respect of the distinction between an employee and independent contractor. This is part 6 of our series of articles focusing on [read more]
Introduction Mr H was an approved SMSF auditor. However, in 2023 ASIC disqualified him from being an approved SMSF auditor. He applied for the AAT to review ASIC’s decision to disqualify him. The AAT recently handed down the outcome of that application. DBA Lawyers do a lot of work with approved SMSF auditors. Accordingly, we [read more]
