Decision Impact statements
Commission of Taxation v Carter The main issue in this case was the taxation of gains from the sale of properties held in a trust. The question for the High Court was whether the default beneficiaries who were entitled to those gains under the deed remained liable to tax despite validly disclaiming their right to those gains after year end. All legislative references in this Decision impact statement are to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936.
Burton v Commissioner of TaxationThis Decision impact statement outlines the ATO’s response to this case which concerns entitlement to foreign income tax offsets (FITOs) under subsection 770-10(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 where an Australian resident pays tax in the United States of America (US) on a capital gain that is only partly assessable in Australia.
Allen & Anor v Federal Commissioner of TaxationThis case concerned whether certain income of a superannuation fund received in its capacity of beneficiary of a trust estate was special income of the fund.
August v FCTThis case concerned whether the profit made by the trustee of a trust from the sale of properties was income according to ordinary concepts or income of a capital nature.
Aussiegolfa P/L V FCTAt issue in this decision was the application of the in-house asset provisions and sole purpose test in the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (SISA) to a managed investment scheme (MIS) facilitating a ‘simulated direct investment’ in real property, including whether a distinct trust was created in respect of a particular investment by the trustee of a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) in the MIS
Burton v FCTThis case concerns entitlement to foreign income tax offsets (FITOs) under subsection 770-10(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 where an Australian resident pays tax in the United States of America (US) on a capital gain that is only partly assessable in Australia because of the CGT discount
Colonial First State Investments v FCTThis case concerned the tax treatment of payments made by the trustee of a unit trust on the redemption of units; in particular whether redeeming unitholders would be assessed on trust capital gains apportioned to them.
Forrest v FCTThis case concerned the deductibility of interest on money borrowed to acquire units in a hybrid trust.
Ghali v FCTThis case concerned a superannuation fund that received distributions of income from a unit trust. The question before the AAT was whether those distributions were special income under s 273(6) or (7) of the ITAA36.
Greenhatch v FCTThis case concerned the tax character of the share of the net income of a trust included in the taxpayer’s assessable income.
Harding v FCTAt issue was whether the taxpayer, an individual, was a ‘resident’ of Australia for the purposes of subsection 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 for the 2011 income year under either the ordinary meaning of resides (the ‘ordinary concepts test’) or under subparagraph 6(1)(a)(i) (the ‘domicile test’).
Hopkins v FCTThis case concerned the assessment of the net income of a trust.
Howard v FCTThis case concerned whether distributions of trust corpus received by an Australian resident individual in the 2006 income year from a Jersey Trust were assessable income of the taxpayer in that year.
Kafataris v FCTWhether CGT event E1 happened when a taxpayer’s interest in real property was placed on trust, which trust was in the nature of a superannuation fund of which the taxpayer was a member. In particular, whether the absolute entitlement exception in paragraph 104-55(5)(a) applied.
Lewski v FCTThis case concerned among other things, the calculation and assessment of trust net income.
Raftland Pty PLD atf the Raftland trust v FCTWhether both the apparent appointment of the trustee of a loss trust as a tertiary beneficiary and the distributions of income to that beneficiary were a sham, or otherwise ineffective in equity.
Whitby Land Company P/L v FCTThis case concerns the validity of assessments issued to a trustee.
Yazbek v FCTThis case was about whether an individual was a ‘beneficiary of a trust estate’  in a year in which they received no distribution and if so, whether the Commissioner had a 4 year period to issue an amended assessment under s 170 ITAA 1936.