Your Association at work - 11 February 2010 update

Submission - the Non-Commercial Loss Rules as contained in the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No.1) Bill 2010.

Taxpayers Australia has prepared and made a submission on the proposed Non-Commercial Loss Rules. Taxpayers Australia mainly agrees with the policy intent of the various integrity measures introduced to prevent the application of Division 7A from being bypassed.  However, we have made comments, in some respect to the application of the proposed amendments, such as:

• the application of the minor benefits exception in determining whether the use of an asset by a shareholder falls within the meaning of "payment" for Division 7A purposes
• use of assets which are deemed "payments" but are not subject to FBT
• the use of a dwelling exception and the 10% use of area condition
• clarity on the interaction of the new interposed entity rules under Subdivision EA and the use of asset by the shareholder in that entity, and
• clarity on the application date.

Submission: 2010-2011 Pre-Budget Submission

Taxpayers Australia has prepared and made a 2010-2011 pre-budget submission recently. The recommendations in our submission focus on the following areas:

• Incentives for Australian individuals and households to maintain and increase their personal savings and investments
• Incentives for personal exertion, small business and entrepreneurs
• Incentives to protect the environment, and
• Improvements to the interpretation, compliance and administration of Australian tax law.

Taxpayers Australia conducted tax discussion group sessions on 2 and 4 February 2010 in Melbourne and Sydney respectively. The following topics were discussed during the sessions:

• Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010
  • Exposure draft - Forestry MIS
  • Exposure draft - New Income test for Entrepreneurs' tax offset
  • Exposure draft - non- commercial loan rules
• TR 2009/D8: Division 7A loans and trust entitlements
• ATO ID 2010/14: tax treatment of annual license fees for tax and accounting software