Articles

Question Our organisation generally elects to use the 50/50 method in the Division 9A ‘meal entertainment’ provisions of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986  (the ‘FBT Act’). Can we use the ‘minor benefits’ exemption to disregard ad-hoc meal entertainment costing less than $300 (including GST) per recipient? Answer When using the meal entertainment provisions, […]

Question We have inadvertently overpaid a staff member a significant amount of wages. At the moment, we are looking to setup a repayment plan, where the employee would pay back, on an interest-free basis, the amount over 3-5 years. Can you please confirm that each new FBT year, to calculate the fringe benefit, we use […]

Almost 400 charities that failed to submit two or more ACNC Annual Information Statements (AIS’s) have lost their registration. In April 2022, the ACNC notified another almost 750 organisations that they also risked revocation for failure to lodge AIS’s (source: extract from ACNC media release of 19 May 2022). This type of ACNC compliance activity […]

It is becoming increasingly common for charities and not-for-profits around the world to accept donations in the form of cryptocurrency. For Australian charities and not-for-profits looking to accept such donations, the ATO has provided a timely reminder of a variety of issues that arise where cryptocurrency donations are to be accepted, specifically: Organisations need to […]

Question We have a staff member that has been  appointed to a new role. The staff member currently works in our Melbourne office but the new role is located on the Victorian-NSW border and so it would be impractical for the staff member to commute to work on an ongoing basis. As a result, the […]

With a change of Government comes new policies and the scrapping of policies previously announced under the former Government (which may include pending legislation lapsing in Parliament). In this article we have identified a few key tax areas in which the change of Government may affect issues previously covered for TaxEd members. FBT Exemption for […]

On 9 May 2022 the Federal Court of Australia handed down judgment in the Landcom Case (Landcom v Commissioner of Taxation [2022] FCA 510). The case deals with a number of interesting GST matters, and in this article we bring to your attention to one aspect of the case regarding GST and the margin scheme. […]

The end of the financial year (30 June) usually prompts a review of bad and doubtful debts. So, it is worth revisiting the GST rules that apply to bad debts. The GST law contains specific rules for dealing with bad debts. However, those same rules also contain a rule regarding overdue debts, specifically where a […]

Question If a staff member attends a third party conference and wins a lucky door prize to the value of $1,000 (entry was based on providing a feedback form for the conference), would this need to be declared as a gift and subject to FBT as being over the $300 minor benefit threshold? Answer It […]

Where an employer pays/reimburses an employee’s road toll expenditure or allows the employee to use the employer’s electronic road toll tag, a fringe benefit may arise, depending on the particular usage of the vehicle. Payment/reimbursement of an employee’s road toll expenses is prima facie an expense payment fringe benefit. Use by an employee of an […]