Minter Ellison's popular report on the fundamentals of doing business in Australia.
Minter Ellison’s trust taxation lawyers provide innovative and practical tax advice on a standalone basis and as part of broader transactions. We understand trust law issues and have a detailed understanding of the practical and commercial issues involving trusts and work closely with other teams to provide a seamless and full-service legal offering. We also advocate in public consultations for trust taxation reforms in Australia and are members of the expert panel that assisted the Board of Taxation with its review of the taxation arrangements applying to Collective Investment Vehicles and Managed Investment Trusts. We also participate in the National Tax Liaison Group’s Trust Consultation Sub-group to help the ATO make the best technical and administrative decisions possible. Our specific expertise includes: fund structures (including private equity, real estate funds, managed investment trusts, collective investment vehicles, infrastructure funds, property funds); pre-establishment global tax issues including identifying the most tax efficient vehicle, structure and location for both fund managers and investors; and providing ongoing advice to fund managers, their partners, and investors to minimise tax liabilities in the investment, holding and disinvestment phases. We also advise on other trust arrangements, including Division 6C trusts, special purpose trusts, charitable and philanthropic trusts and draft trust deeds to ensure the clauses operate as intended for tax purposes.
On 29 March 2012 the High Court unanimously upheld the decision of the Commissioner of Taxation to disallow an application for endorsement of the 'Kalos Metron Charitable Trust' as a charitable trust fund. The decision provides High Court authority regarding the general duties of trustees for the proper administration of charitable trusts both under general law and for the purpose of meeting the special condition in section 50-60 of the ITAA 1997 for income tax exemption.
The Australian Government has released a consultation paper seeking public views on the proposal to introduce uniform national fundraising regulation. Under the proposed regime the regulated activity and regulated entity would be broadly defined, and specific exemptions would apply to limit fundraising regulation to those activities and entities that should be regulated for policy reasons. In this Alert, we discuss the key features of the national regulatory framework and other important issues tabled in the consultation paper.
The Government has released a Consultation Paper seeking public views on the introduction of a standardised principle based governance framework for all not-for-profit (NFP) entities. The rules will overhaul existing governance rules for all NFP entities and will require a review of their existing constituent documents for compliance with the new rules. The rules will be administered by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) when it commences operations on 1 July 2012.
The Australian Government has announced that it intends as an interim measure to amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (the Tax Act) to:
Fin 48 certainty for foreign fund managers