The High Court has refused the ATO special leave to appeal from the Full Federal Court decision in FCT v Harding. This case has particular importance for individual taxpayers attempting to determine whether they are Australian residents or non-residents for income tax purposes. The two tests...

The food exemption in the Goods and Services Act 1999 has provoked intense debate within the community. This paper examines the treatment of GST on food and highlights some of the practical administrative and compliance problems. It then considers whether the exemption is worthwhile having...

This paper examines aspects of the policy design processes associated with the 1999 Review of Business Taxation. Given the breadth of the Review’s recommendations this paper focuses on two of its enacted proposals, the non-commercial loss (NCL) rules and the Simplified Tax System (STS). Whilst...

This paper examines the Small Business Entities (SBE) income tax accounting concessions (for prepaid expenses; depreciating assets and trading stock ) that commenced on 1 July 2007. These concessions originated from the former Simplified Tax System (STS). Given that the former STS was subject to...

The Ralph Committee, consisting of three leading Australian businessmen, John Ralph (Chairman), Rick Allert and Bob Joss, was established in 1998 to make recommendations on reforms to the Australian tax system. Relevantly, the Ralph Committee sought to achieve three national taxation objectives:...

In 1996 the Australian Government embarked on a campaign helping Australia’s 860,000 small businesses from the constraints of crippling taxes and red tape with the establishment of the Small Business Deregulation Taskforce. Notwithstanding the efforts of the taskforce the income tax laws have...

Exempting capital gains from taxation clearly favours large established business at the expense of new and small business, and promotes an increasing concentration of wealth at the expense of low and middle income taxpayers . The business submissions to the Government’s Tax Review 2001 though...

The issue of taxing wine grapes provoked a strong reaction from the wine industry and resulted in the Commissioner of Taxation’s recent press release that announced that wine grapes were considered to be GST free. This article examines the decision by the Commissioner of Taxation to classify...

A number of forces push towards innovation and the acceptance of new teaching methods in Australian university business schools. Large class sizes and diversity of the student population often characterised by a significant international student cohort, the increasing complexity of topics (such...

Australian federal Governments' increasingly broaden and tinker with a range of small business tax concessions as they seek electoral support from an estimated 2.7 million small businesses. Consequently, a plethora of costly tax concessions for small business has emerged. Their complexity...