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During the financial year Ram paid his tax agent $1,000 to complete the previous year’s income tax return. He also paid his solicitor $2,000 to draft an objection to an ATO assessment that he received two years ago. Ram also paid $50,000 in income tax.
Explain with supported reasons which of the three costs are deductible.
To support the analysis in your answers refer where appropriate to the ITAA 1936, ITAA 1997, Tax Rulings and/or case law.
On November 11 Tina a twenty year old international student arrives in Brisbane to study at university. She works part time in a local supermarket to help with living expenses and study fees. Her earnings to 30 June are $12,000. Regrettably she does not do well in the assignments and exams and fails all subjects. With deep regret she returns to her home country.
Did the student become an Australian resident To support the analysis in your answers refer where appropriate to the ITAA 1936, ITAA 1997, Tax Rulings and/or case law.
Jimmy is an Australian single full-time university student who works part time in a restaurant. During the year he has receipts as follows:
What is Jimmy’s assessable income for the year To support the analysis in your answers refer where appropriate to the ITAA 1936, ITAA 1997, Tax Rulings and/or case law.
Josie is a single Australian mortgage broker who obtains loans for her clients from various banks. She earns commission from the banks when she introduces a successful loan application to any of the banks.
Usually she works from home and at times she also visits her clients at their homes to arrange the documents for the applications. At times she visits the branches of the banks to drop in hard copies of the paperwork.
Her home office is where she does most of the work with these applications, stores client information and keeps hard copies of the various client applications.
Her home office occupies 15% of the total space in her home. Her outgoings in relation to her home for the current financial year are as follows:
Calculate how much of the above outgoings are a deductible expense for Josie To support the analysis in your answers refer where appropriate to the ITAA 1936, ITAA 1997, Tax Rulings and/or case law.
Thus, the marginal tax rate applicable is 32.5%.
However, the tax rate applicable (excluding Medicare levy) = (6172/45000)*100 = 13.71%
In accordance with s. 25(5) ITAA 1997, an entity can deduct expenditure which is related to managing the tax affairs. Additionally, as per s.960-100, one of the key entities is an individual taxpayer. Also, as highlighted in the discussion of the Falcetta v FC of T 2003 ATC 4962; [2003] FCA 1125 case, it is also established that the deduction in this regard could be claimed only in the year in which the expenditure on tax affair management is incurred (Sadiq et. al., 2016), Therefore based on the given facts and the above applicable law, it is apparent that the fees that Ram has paid to the tax agent for the previous year filing would be deductible for tax purposes in the current year.
The deduction highlighted above in relation of s. 25(5) also applies to the expenses incurred in filing the tax objection in relation to the previous years. Further, this deduction would be applicable in the same year in which the expense is incurred. As a result, the expense incurred by Ram for drafting the objection through the use of a solicitor would be deductible for tax purposes but in the current year when the expense is actually incurred. Similarly, s.25(5) deductions do not apply in relation to any penalty or income tax which is paid on account of previous tax returns (Deutsch et. al., 2016). Hence, the income tax of $ 50,000 paid by Ram would not be tax deductible in the current year or the previous year.
The tax residency determination is covered under s. 6(1) ITAA 1936 which lists down the various conditions that need to be satisfied. These tests have also been highlighted in TR 98/17 which deals with tax residency. While in total there are four tests, but only two tests are applicable for foreign residents. These two tests are listed as follows (CCH, 2013).
Resides Test – The Australian tax law does not highlight the definition of the word “resides”. As a result, the relevant factors for this test have to be obtained considering the relevant case laws along with the tax rulings. Based on these, it has been found that the critical factors are as outlined below (Woellner, 2014).
183 Day Test – In order to satisfy this test, the following two conditions need to be fulfilled (CCH, 2013).
Failure to meet any condition listed above would lead to failure in passing the test.
It is apparent that Tina arrives in Brisbane on November 11 and hence till June 30 of the next year, more than 183 days would have passed and hence this condition is satisfied. However, there is no intention on Tina’s part to settle in Australia and hence the 183 day test is not passed. However, considering the significance of the reason to visit Australia which is to study, she would have passed the resides test for tax residency and hence, for the year ending on June 30, she would be considered as an Australian tax resident.
The objective is to determine the assessable income in accordance with the relevant tax law.
In the given case, it is noteworthy that the payment received by Jimmy cannot be termed as a payment under s. 21A. This is because it is not a benefit derived from business but arises on account of Christmas festival. Thus, it needs to be analysed in wake of the above properties of gift whether the scotch bottle may be termed as a gift or not. The customer gives Jimmy the bottle and hence there is ownership transfer from the customer to Jimmy. Further, Jimmy has not asked for the bottle and nor has the bottle been given as part of any past, present or future compensation due to which it may be concluded that the transfer is voluntary and is not prompted by any desire of any future benefit on the behalf of the customer. Besides, there is benefaction in the transfer and hence all the conditions of a gift are fulfilled. This implies that the scotch bottle would be a gift and hence exempted from tax (Woellner, 2014).
Usually, the house expenses are categorised as private expenses on which no deduction can be claimed. However, when the house is used for conducting business, then it can be termed as a place of business. Under such circumstances, a portion of the selected expenses related to the house would be deemed as deductible. The following factors need to be taken into consideration to determine whether a particular area may be deemed as a “place of business” in accordance with tax ruling TR 93/30 (Barkoczy, 2016).
If a concerned area has the characteristics of a “place of business”, then it loses the domestic character and starts to be recognised as a business premises as highlighted in Swinford v FC of T (1984) 15 ATR 1154 (CCH, 2013).
However an alternative arrangement is the private study where out of convenience a portion of the house is used for work purpose which otherwise would have been carried out in a business office. In this particular arrangement, the range of deductions available are considerably lesser as the private or domestic character is not lost as exhibited in the verdict of the Handley v FC of T (1981) 11 ATR 644 case (Gilders et. al., 2016). The following two broad categories of expenses are associated with a home office or private study (s.8-1 ITAA 1997) (Woellner, 2014).
It is imperative that the above expenses must be directly related to the home office.
Based on the given information about Josie who is a mortgage broker and operates from home, the following critical facts are worth noticing.
It is apparent from the above facts that Josie seems to have a have a home office rather than a place of business. This is because based on the facts it does not seem that there is any place which is exclusively meant for business purposes only coupled with lack of visit of clients to Rosie’s place. As a result, as per s. 8-1, occupancy and running expenses to the extent of the home office may be considered as deductible for the purposes of income tax.
Based on the above, total annual deductible expenses = $13,200
Hence, it may be concluded on the basis of above computations that Rosie can claim a annual business expense deduction to the extent of $ 13,200 on account of home expenses.
Barkoczy, S. (2016), Foundation of Taxation Law 2016 (8thed.), North Ryde: CCH Publications
CCH (2013), Australian Master Tax Guide 2013 (51st ed.), Sydney: Wolters Kluwer
Deutsch, R., Freizer, M., Fullerton, I., Hanley, P., & Snape, T. (2016), Australian tax handbook (8th ed.), Pymont: Thomson Reuters,
Gilders, F., Taylor, J., Walpole, M., Burton, M. & Ciro, T. (2016), Understanding taxation law 2016 (9th ed.), Sydney: LexisNexis/Butterworths.
Nethercott, L., Richardson, G. & Devos, K. (2016), Australian Taxation Study Manual 2016, (4th ed.), Sydney: Oxford University Press
Sadiq, K, Coleman, C, Hanegbi, R, Jogarajan, S, Krever, R, Obst, W, & Ting, A (2016) , Principles of Taxation Law 2016 (8th ed.), Pymont:Thomson Reuters
Woellner, R. (2014), Australian taxation law 2014, (7th ed.), North Ryde: CCH Australia.
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