The appellants in Lowe v Commissioner of Inland Revenue (1981) 1 NZLR 326 subdivided their land and sold it for a profit. The Commissioner applied section 67(4)(e) of the Income Tax Act 1976, which provides that assessable income of the taxpayer shall be deemed to include all profits or gains...

The trading stock of a business comprises raw materials and goods purchased or produced for sale. The true profit of a business is not merely the excess of sales over expenses for the year. From this figure one must subtract the value of opening trading stock, and to it add the value of closing...

In Commissioner of Inland Revenue v Smythe [1981] 1 NZLR 673 the Court of Appeal considered whether a lump sum payment provided in lieu of long service leave that had not been taken could be described as a bonus. Section 68 of the Income Tax Act 1976 provides concessional tax treatment for...

Section 156 of the Income Tax Act 1976 permits exporters to make certain deductions when calculating their assessable income. In order to qualify for an export incentive deduction the court in Preece v Commissioner of Inland Revenue (1981) 4 TRNZ 379 held that the applicant must be the owner of...

This plan follows a previous article by the author, “Estate Planning Checklist” [1979] NZLJ 78, available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1545523 . The plan is in the form of a letter sent to instructing solicitors about a fictional client and details the aspects of his estate that...

A complete and detailed examination of the client’s financial affairs is necessary for estate planning to be effective. The matters to be borne in mind include: estate duties; gift duties; the client’s items of property; the client’s taxable income; cash flow of the client’s business; and...

Estate planning seems to be subject to more delays than most work undertaken by solicitors. One reason may be that estate planning employs conveyancing techniques in a manner that solicitors would seldom recommend to clients who are parties to arm’s length transactions

The fundamental objective of estate planning is to reduce the death duties payable on the estate. The way to achieve this is to dispose of property, and thereby to reduce the dutiable estate before the client’s death. Influence over and benefit derived from the transferred assets can be...

Re Bloomfield (28 August 1978, M 20/77, Gisborne Supreme Court, Jeffries J) dealt with the valuation of an interest in a farm partnership on the death of one of the partners. The deceased held a one twelfth share in the partnership. In the absence of any written partnership agreement, the...

As part of systems of tax law, general anti-avoidance rules frustrate transactions that contrive to avoid tax. Avoidance transactions adhere to the strict letter of the law while flouting or exploiting its policy. Statutory general anti-avoidance rules are found in many countries in Europe and...