Australian businesses looking to pay for outsource or offshore services need to be aware of the royalty withholding rules under Australia’s tax laws. For clients that are offshoring and paying a “seat lease” fee which includes rental of office equipment and software, then a payment for some of these items might arguably fall within the ambit of Royalty. As noted …
Australia’s Controlled Foreign Companies rules tightened: Bywater Investments revisited
There have been several interesting events in the offshore world recently. As the Panama papers and then the Paradise papers unfolded, it seems pretty obvious that hiding in low or no tax jurisdictions is becoming less cool. It’s relatively easy these days to wake up to find massive amounts of data hacked from secure systems, and not all companies responsibly …
The perfect storm. Is your Australian tax compliance client data secure?
Rewinding back to earlier this year, Australia will have a mandatory data breach notification scheme in place within the year after several aborted attempts, following the passage of legislation through the senate. There has certainly been a raft of overseas data breaches, and some of them like the Equifax breach has put Australians’ sensitive financial information at risk. What is …
Australians taking tax shortcuts overseas. Short term gain, long term pain.
After almost three decades overseas, we’ve seen some interesting behavior from Australians taking shortcuts overseas. Below are several of the examples, and some of the more interesting cases we’ve seen. Starting off with the interesting story of an Australian who killed a taxi driver over a $10 dispute on a taxi fare. However, let’s look at some of the issues …
Australia’s new data breach notification laws. Are your suppliers ready?
With an increase in data now on the cloud, and a number of third party services providers assisting Australian accountants, it’s a good time to look at the ever changing laws on data breaches. More recently, there was the “Can you hear me” scam reaching Australia. The scammer only needs to record you saying “yes” over the phone. The intention …
Netflix Tax is coming… Are you ready?
The new GST tax is coming. There’s been plenty of news about retailers being unable to compete with imports under $1,000 not having GST, but now the government is extending GST to digital products and other services imported by consumers. Introduced as the amazing Australia “Netflix tax” back in April 2015, and a move which would “level the playing field” it …
Why Australian Accountants need to be concerned about the ATO’s recent moves to tax Outsourcing companies
In the recent case of Tech Mahindra Limited v FCT, the Federal Court held that an Indian resident company which carried out IT services for Australian clients both from its Australian permanent establishment (PE) employees and by its Indian employees was liable to tax in Australia in respect of part of the income derived from the services provided from India. …
Do Labour Hire firms need to register with the TPB?
The TPB has released an information sheet on 8 January 2016 [TPB(I) 26/2016 Labour hire/on-hire firms] to assist labour hire/on-hire firms involved in the provision of tax related services to understand the operation of the tax agent services regime and whether or not they need to register with the TPB. If the labour hire/on-hire firm is involved in placing a …
Cloud computing and the Code of Professional Conduct. TPB Exposure draft
The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) has released an exposure draft on Cloud Computing. Per the ED, a registered agent must know and understand the nature of any cloud computing arrangements they enter into, particularly in the context of how these arrangements impact upon the tax agent services being delivered to their client. Cloud services include information storage, lodgment of returns, …
