This Paper examines Australia's implementation of the BEPS project since the final reports were released in October 2015. The recent history demonstrates a confused picture. On the one hand, some of Australia's actions have been both quick and supportive, with the government enthusiastic to...

Australia’s general anti-avoidance rule permits the revenue authority to strike down transactions which occurred and the tax consequences they generated. This is the easy step. The harder task is the next step because the rule seems to require speculation about what might have happened...

Australian tax drafting is now a small distinctive enclave within the larger realm of legislative drafting because the tax system has been chosen as the site for a novel drafting project. This has been done in the apparent belief that changing the choice and organisation of words within the tax...

The proposed Australian regime for taxing financial arrangements ("TOFA") is presented as a unified coherent regime, based upon, and executed by reference to certain principles. These principles leave much important detail to be inferred, with sometimes unpredictable consequences. Moreover, the...

This paper argues that all anti-abuse rules in tax law require both a destruction and reconstruction step. The paper considers the claim, which prompted the 2013 changes, that Australia’s reconstruction rule was defective and then examines some of the theoretical options that were available...

Until recently, the taxation of income held in trust was one of the few areas of Australian tax law left largely untouched by legislative tinkering. This paper recounts the history and current state of play of the many recent reform proposals that have been announced, and in some cases...

The design of modern statutory GAARs tends to follow common patterns. One common element is the notion of ‘purpose.’ It is typically a critical component of the rule, and in many ways, the most problematic. ‘Purpose’ is the black box at the centre of most GAAR rules and GAAR disputes...