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Directors of corporate trustees of self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) should be aware that the director identification regime is now in force. Depending on when you became a director, the deadline for application is either November 2022 or within 28 days of the appointment. The application process itself is easy and can be done online through the new Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS). Once you receive it, your 15-digit identification number will be permanently linked to you even if you change companies, stop being a director, change your name or move interstate or overseas.

The director ID regime was implemented as a way to prevent the use of false or fraudulent director identities, make it easier for external administrators and regulators to trace directors’ relationships with companies over time, and identify and eliminate director involvement in unlawful activity, such as illegal phoenix activity.

Tip: Each director needs to submit a separate application for their own director ID.

To apply for your director ID, you first need to set up myGovID, which is different to myGov. The myGovID is an app that you need to download onto your smart device and confirm your identity in using standard documents (drivers licence, passport, etc). You’ll then be able to log on to a range of government services, including the online director ID application with the ABRS.

To complete the director ID application, you need to provide additional information such as your tax file number (TFN), residential address, and/or details from two additional specified documents to verify your identity, such as: bank account details; ATO notice of assessment; super account details; a dividend statement; Centrelink payment summary; or PAYG payment summary.

Once you receive your director ID, you need to pass it onto the record-holder of the corporate trustee, which may be the company secretary, another director, a contact person or an authorised agent of the company. If the corporate trustee changes or you become the director of another company, you will need to pass on this information to the new corporate trustee or the other company.

 

Recently, a number of significant superannuation changes were proposed in Parliament as a part of the government’s plan to enhance super outcomes for Australians.

Work test and bring-forward rule changes

Currently, individuals aged between 67 and 75 either need to pass the “work test” or satisfy the work test exemption criteria if they want to make non-concessional and salary sacrifice contributions to their super. The amendments would allow individuals aged between 67 and 75 to make certain non-concessional contributions and salary sacrifice contributions without meeting the work test. Also, individuals aged under 75 could access bring-forward non-concessional contributions.

Lowered downsizer contributions age

Current downsizer contribution measures allow individuals aged 65 or over to make a contribution into super of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of selling their home. The government is seeking to reduce the lower eligibility age to 60.

Increased maximum releasable amount for first home buyers

The First Home Super Saver Scheme was designed to help first home buyers save for a deposit by allowing them to make voluntary concessional and non-concessional contributions into super, and later withdraw those eligible contributions and associated earnings to purchase a home.

Currently, the maximum amount releasable from super is $30,000. The proposed changes would increase that maximum to $50,000, although the amount of voluntary contributions eligible to be released in any single financial year would not change from $15,000.

Removing super guarantee minimum threshold

Currently, an employer does not have to pay super guarantee for an employee who earns less than $450 in a calendar month with that employer. This threshold was originally introduced to minimise employers’ administrative burden. However, with the technological advancement of single touch payroll (STP), the government no longer sees a need for the threshold, which is increasingly affecting young, lower-income, part-time and female workers, and has proposed removing it, so that employers must pay super guarantee to all employees.

The ATO has issued an alert warning taxpayers that it is investigating certain arrangements where entities on-sell luxury cars without remitting the requisite luxury car tax (LCT) amount.

Businesses and individuals who sell cars valued over a certain threshold (the luxury tax threshold) in the course of their business are subject to luxury car tax (LCT). This is a requirement if your business is registered or required to be registered for GST. LCT doesn’t just apply to instances where a dealer is selling a car to an individual or a business – it also applies in instances where a business sells or trades in a car that is a capital asset.

Tip: For the 2021–2022 financial year, the luxury car thresholds are $79,659 for fuel-efficient vehicles and $69,152 for all other vehicles. If your business buys a car with a GST-inclusive value above these thresholds, you are generally liable to pay LCT.

If you’re the seller of a luxury car, whether or not it’s within your usual course of business, you’re required to charge LCT to the recipient, report the associated LCT amount in your BAS and remit it to the ATO by your BAS payment date. You can’t legitimately avoid LCT by selling a luxury car to an employee, associate, or employee of your associate for less than market value, or by giving it away. The LCT value of the car in those situations will always be the GST-inclusive market value.

The ATO is currently investigating arrangements where a chain of entities that progressively on-sell luxury cars have improperly obtained LCT refunds and evaded remitting LCT. Usually, in this arrangement, one of the entities claims a refund of LCT while creating a consequential liability to another entity in the supply chain. One or more of the participating entities down the chain will then not correctly report and pay their LCT liabilities. Finally, these entities will be liquidated to thwart ATO compliance or recovery action.

These arrangements are concerning because they can result in luxury cars being sold without income tax and GST obligations being met. For example, luxury cars could be sold to end-users at more competitive prices with generally higher profit margins, disadvantaging legitimate businesses in the market that are meeting all their tax obligations.

Recently, the ATO has noticed that some larger and wealthier businesses have mistakenly claimed small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions when they weren’t entitled. By incorrectly applying the concessions, these businesses were able to either reduce or completely eliminate their capital gains. The ATO has urged all taxpayers that have applied the small business CGT concessions to check their eligibility. Primarily, this means that the business should meet the definition of a CGT small business entity or pass the maximum net asset value test.

Australia’s tax law provides four concessions to enable eligible small businesses to eliminate or at least reduce the capital gain on a CGT asset, provided certain conditions are met.

Tip: If you run a small business and are thinking of retiring or selling the business, we can help you work out whether you qualify for the CGT concessions, and how to use them optimally to reduce or eliminate potential capital gains.

To be eligible to apply these CGT concessions, the business must have a maximum net asset value of less than $6 million. Failing that, the business must qualify as a “CGT small business entity”. That is, it must be carrying on a business, and have an aggregate turnover of less than $2 million.

The CGT asset that gives rise to the gain must be an active asset, which just means it is an asset used in carrying on a business by either you or a related entity. Shares in a company or trust interests in a trust can also qualify as active assets.

Once the basic conditions are satisfied, your small business can choose to apply one or all of the four CGT concessions provided the additional conditions to each concession is also met. Meeting all the conditions means that the concessions can be applied one after another, in some cases eliminating the entire capital gain.

Whether you can deduct a loss all boils down to whether you actually owned an asset. For example, if you actually owned cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin in a digital wallet and due to the collapse of an exchange all the cryptocurrency you owned has disappeared, then it is likely you can claim a capital loss. This is likely to also apply if the cryptocurrency you own is stolen in a scam.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that a deduction can be claimed for people who have been scammed into handing over money for supposed “cryptocurrency investment” in schemes where no actual cryptocurrency ownership occurred. This is because they have not technically lost an asset, as they did not own the cryptocurrency in the first place, and the money invested is not considered a capital gains tax (CGT) asset under Australian tax law.

As investing in cryptocurrency becomes more popular in Australia, there is also a corresponding increase in the number of scams being reported. Due to the unregulated nature of cryptocurrency and the recent failure of two Australian cryptocurrency exchanges, this investment space has become a risky free-for-all, with Scamwatch estimating that around $35 million was lost to cryptocurrency scams in the first half of 2021. If you’re one of the unlucky ones to have been scammed, depending on the circumstances you may be able to claim a capital loss deduction.

Cryptocurrency scams come in a variety of forms, the most common being impersonation, where scammers pretend to be from a reputable trading platform and have legitimate-looking digital assets – like fake trading platforms which look like the real thing and email addresses that impersonate a genuine company – to lure people in. Investors who fall into this trap will usually see the initial money they invested skyrocket on fake trading platforms and may even be allowed to access a small return. Once people are hooked, though, the scammers will typically ask for further investments of large sums of money before cutting off contact and disappearing completely.

Tip: If you think you’ve been scammed, you should contact your bank or financial institution as soon as possible. You can also make reports to Scamwatch and to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Finally, you can contact IDCARE, a free, government-funded service, if you suspect identity theft.Contact us for more information and assistance.

Most of Australia has been experiencing a building boom, fuelled by government policy such as the HomeBuilder scheme and a general desire to make our living spaces better as we spend more time working, educating and living at home. However, with global supply chains and transport routes disrupted due to the effects of COVID-19, there have been well publicised material shortages and builder collapses in the sector. If you’re building or substantially renovating your home, any related delays you experience may also end up costing you when you decide to sell.

For most individual Australian tax residents, there’s an automatic exemption from CGT for the capital gain (or loss) that arises when you sell your home, known as the “main residence exemption”. Generally, the home must have been your main residence for the entire ownership period; however, exemptions may apply where you’ve had to move out while building, renovating or repairing.

The related building concession allows you to treat a dwelling as your main residence from the time that the land was acquired for a maximum period of up to four years, applying from either the time you acquire the ownership interest in the land or the time you cease to occupy a dwelling already on the land. If it takes more than four years to construct or repair the residence, you may only be entitled to a partial main residence exemption. This means that if you later sell the residence, the period when you didn’t live there during construction or renovation will be subject to CGT.

If you’re unable to complete your main residence construction or renovation project within the four-year maximum timeframe either due to the builder becoming bankrupt or due to severe illness of a family member, you may be able to apply to the ATO for discretion to extend the four-year period so you don’t get penalised financially.

The ATO has announced the extension of its Medicare exemption statement data-matching program. This program has been conducted for the last 12 years, and has now been extended to collect data for the 2021 through to 2023 financial years. It is estimated that information relating to approximately 100,000 individuals will be obtained each financial year.

If you live in Australia as an Australian citizen, a New Zealand citizen, an Australian permanent resident, an individual applying for permanent residency or a temporary resident covered by a ministerial order, then you are eligible to enrol in Medicare and receive healthcare benefits. However, this also means you need to pay Medicare levy at 2% of your taxable income to partly fund the federal scheme.

The Medicare exemption statement (MES) is a statement that outlines the period during a financial year that an individual was not eligible for Medicare. It can be obtained from Services Australia. Individuals who are not eligible for Medicare will then be exempt from paying the Medicare levy in their tax returns.

The information that will be obtained as part of the ATO’s extended data-matching program includes MES applicants’ identification details, entitlement status and approved entitlement period details.

In previous years of this data-matching program, the ATO was able to verify around 87% of the Medicare exemptions claimed in individual tax returns without needing to contact the taxpayers directly. However, the remaining 13% of taxpayers (around 11,000 individuals) who claimed Medicare exemptions were subjected to ATO review.

The ATO has recently issued an alert warning taxpayers against disguising undeclared foreign income as gifts or loans from related overseas entities, including family and friends. It says it has continued to encounter situations where Australian resident taxpayers have derived amounts of income or capital gains offshore that are assessable, but the taxpayers have failed to declare the amounts in their income tax returns.

TIP: If you’re an Australian resident for tax purposes, your worldwide income (not just money you make from Australian sources) is assessable and should be reported to the ATO in your annual tax return.

The ATO will now be looking closely at arrangements where taxpayers are aware of their residency status and the tax implications that flow from it, but attempt to avoid or evade tax of their foreign assessable income by disguising amounts as either gifts or loans from a related overseas entity.

If family or friends who live overseas have provided a genuine monetary gift or loan to you or your business, you should keep as much supporting documentation as possible about it. This is because if there is any uncertainty about whether particular amounts are genuine gifts or loans, the ATO will form a view based on all of the available evidence.

Contemporaneous and complete records should include detailed financial records, full loan documentation, formal identification of the giver and any declarations they made about the money in their country of residence. A deed of gift or a statutory declaration may not be accepted as conclusive evidence.

Inheritances also count as “gifts”. If you receive an inheritance from overseas, a certified copy of the person’s will or a distribution statement for the estate should be a part of your recordkeeping.

A new data matching program designed to identify and address non-compliance with tax and super obligations is under way in relation to government payments for the 2018–2019 to 2022–2023 income years. It covers most services that the Commonwealth Government pays third-party program providers to deliver.

The ATO will obtain data from Comcare, the Department of Health, the National Disability Insurance Agency, the National Indigenous Australian Agency, the Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the clean energy regulator. This will add to the information the ATO currently receives from government entities through the taxable payments annual report (TPAR).

This means that contractors, subcontractors and consultants in any type of business structure (sole trader, company, partnership or trust) that receive payments from government under these agencies’ programs may be subject to extra scrutiny.

It is estimated that 36,000 service providers will be captured under this program each financial year. Of that number, approximately 11,000 will be individuals and the rest will be companies, partnerships, trusts and government entities.

TIP: If you’re a service provider under one of the affected government programs, you should ensure you’re meeting all your registration and lodgment obligations. We can help review your records and correct any problems so you don’t get a surprise letter from the ATO.

Due to the ongoing economic impacts of COVID-19 on large parts of Australia, the ATO has announced the extension of various COVID-19 relief measures for trustees of self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs). The relief previously only applied to the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 financial years, but will now also be available for the 2021–2022 financial year.

SMSF residency test

To be a complying super fund and receive tax concessions, SMSFs must be an “Australian super fund” at all times during the year. This requires, among other things, for the central management and control of the SMSF (ie individual trustees, or directors of a corporate trustee) to ordinarily be in Australia. Under the relief, a fund will still meet this requirement even if its central management and control is temporarily outside of Australia for up to two years.

Rental relief

If an SMSF or a related party has continued to provide rental relief based on the current market conditions, whether it be a rental reduction, waiver or deferral to a tenant, the ATO will provide relief in the form of not taking any compliance action against the fund. However, this is predicated on the rental relief being offered on commercial terms, and there being proper documentation with regards to the arrangement.

Loan repayment relief

For loan repayment relief provided by an SMSF to a related or unrelated party due to the financial impacts of COVID-19, where the relief is offered on commercial terms and the changes to the loan agreement are properly documented, the ATO will provide relief on similar terms as the interim rental relief – that is, it will not take any compliance action against the fund. This will also apply to limited recourse borrowing arrangements (LRBAs).

In-house assets

Where an SMSF exceeds the 5% in-house asset threshold at 30 June 2021 due to the financial impacts of COVID-19, trustees must still prepare a written plan to reduce the market value of the fund’s in-house assets to below 5% by 30 June 2022. However, the ATO has said it will not take any compliance action where the plan has not been executed by the due date as a result of the market not having recovered, or in some cases the plan may be unnecessary because of market recovery.

PAYG variations

The ATO has confirmed that its penalty and interest relief for excessive PAYG variations applies to SMSFs that continue to be impacted by COVID-19 during 2021–2022. The ATO will not apply penalties or interest for excessive variations of PAYG instalments during the 2021–2022 income year, provided that the taxpayer has taken reasonable care to estimate their end-of-year tax.

Audits

The ATO has also extended to 2021–2022 its existing COVID-19 relief in the Addendum to the Auditor/actuary contravention report (ACR). The ACR relief for 2021–2022 will apply for rental relief (including rental reductions, waivers and deferrals), loan repayment relief (including for LRBAs), and in-house assets.

TIP: If you’re a trustee of an SMSF and you or your fund’s members have been affected by COVID-19, we can help you work out the potential tax implications and relief available, and put the proper documentation in place.

Directors of companies will soon have to enrol in the Director Identification Number regime. This requires current and future directors to apply for director identification numbers (DIN) which will be permanently linked to the individual, even if they are no longer a director. It is hoped the regime will make it easier to trace relationships across companies and reduce instances of phoenixing and other illegal activity. Most existing directors will have until 30 November 2022 to apply for the DIN through the Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS).

Directors can now use the new ABRS online services to register from 1 November 2021. Sign-ins and director identity verification will be conducted using the myGovID app (different from myGov).

The Director Identification Number regime came into force late in 2020 as a tool for the Federal Government to reduce phoenixing and black economy activities.

Tip: Illegal phoenix activity is when a company shuts down to avoid paying its debts. A new company is then started to continue the same business activities, without the debt.

Individuals that operate under the Corporations Act 2001 and became a director on or before 31 October 2021 are required to apply for a DIN before the end of the transitional period, which is between 4 April 2021 and 30 November 2022.

Directors who operate under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 and became a director on or before 31 October 2021 will have even more time to apply for a DIN – until 30 November 2023 (with a transition period between 4 April 2021 and 30 November 2023). Any individuals who are appointed directors between 1 November 2021 and 4 April 2022 will have within 28 days of their appointment to apply for the DIN, and from 5 April 2022 individuals seeking to become directors will need to apply for a DIN before their appointment.

Any conduct that undermines the DIN requirement will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. This includes deliberately providing false identity information, intentionally providing a false DIN or intentionally applying for multiple DINs.