By Daniel Butler, Director ([email protected]), DBA Lawyers Employers are required to make the minimum superannuation guarantee (‘SG’) contribution for each employee to avoid a shortfall under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) (‘SGAA’). This appears to be a simplistic rule. If an employer does not provide the minimum SG contribution, significant penalties apply. The real issue [read more]
Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers Taxation Ruling TR 2019/2 Income tax: whether penalty interest is deductible provides the Australian Taxation Office’s (‘ATO’s’) view on the deductibility of penalty interest. It replaces Taxation Ruling TR 93/7W Income tax: whether penalty interest payments are deductible, which has been withdrawn. This article highlights the relevance of TR 2019/2 for self managed superannuation [read more]
Shaun Backhaus, Lawyer ([email protected]) and Daniel Butler, Director ([email protected]), DBA Lawyers Many advisers are aware of the potential duty exemption available under s 41A of the Duties Act 2000 (Vic) where dutiable property such as real estate is transferred to a member of an SMSF in respect of their interest in the fund. This potential exemption may also apply [read more]
Shaun Backhaus, Lawyer ([email protected]) and Daniel Butler, Director ([email protected]), DBA Lawyers With the imposition of foreign purchaser duty continuing to be implemented around the country there is a need to determine how this additional tax will apply to SMSFs. Background Most jurisdictions imposing some form of ‘foreign purchaser duty’ include a ‘foreign trust’ or ‘trustee [read more]
By Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers A unit trust is a popular structure to hold property and other investments. This article examines numerous methods how an SMSF may invest in a unit trust. Multiple unitholders Many publicly offered managed investment funds are structured as a unit trust to allow multiple investors to invest in a [read more]
Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers This article examines who is authorised to provide taxation advice in view of the limitations in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (‘CA’) on advisers relating to who can provide financial product advice. Broadly, there are a number of exemptions in the CA and Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth) (‘CA Regs’) [read more]
By Daniel Butler, Director ([email protected]), DBA Lawyers What is Single Touch Payroll? The Single Touch Payroll (‘STP’) regime was introduced to provide the ATO with real time information on employer PAYG and superannuation obligations. It also provides employees with greater transparency of their salary and reportable superannuation and fringe benefit entitlements. From 1 July 2019, all employers, [read more]
Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers Introduction An SMSF trustee paying a pension to a member who is under 60 years must generally withhold pay as you go (‘PAYG’) and pay that amount to the ATO within certain time frames. This article examines when an SMSF trustee paying a pension should pay the relevant PAYG [read more]
Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers On 12 March 2019 the Australian Taxation Office (‘ATO’) updated their website to clarify its approach to dealing with the application of annual leave loading (‘AL loading’) for the purposes of the superannuation guarantee (‘SG’) regime. 1 SG and ordinary time earnings (‘OTE’) Superannuation is broadly payable on an [read more]
The ATO is a large bureaucracy and produces a lot of guidance material. Generally the ATO feels bound by its published material from an administrative viewpoint. However, only certain publications bind the ATO. Thus it is important that advisers and taxpayers understand the range of material (or products) published by the ATO and the level [read more]
