Page 6008 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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laws. A number of technical and housekeeping amendments to the Act are now proposed which will clarify certain provisions, rectify some anomalies, generally streamline the administration of ACT tax laws and, where appropriate, bring the legislation into line with other State jurisdictions.
The proposals will amend the grouping provisions for payroll tax which group together associated businesses for the purpose of overcoming minimisation schemes. They will allow the Commissioner for ACT Revenue to decide whether a business is operated "substantially independently" and not just "independently" from other members of a group, to group those companies whose directors themselves have a controlling interest by majority voting power at company meetings, and provide other more specific criteria to be applied when deciding whether to exclude a business from a group.
The provisions will enable exclusion from a group to occur retrospectively and remove the requirement of having to publicly identify taxpayers who have been excluded from a group, thus ensuring privacy. The proposals will also allow the Commissioner for ACT Revenue, with agreement from the taxpayer, to issue a compromise assessment where it is difficult or impracticable to ascertain the exact amount of tax without undue delay or expense for both commissioner and taxpayer.
At present there is some doubt about the commissioner's ability to remit penalties imposed for failure to lodge a return or instrument for assessment. This could lead to the unsatisfactory situation where the maximum penalty of 200 per cent is automatically applied and cannot be remitted in whole or part by the commissioner. The proposed amendments will remove such doubt by enabling the commissioner to remit penalty tax in any circumstance where it has been imposed.
It has been suggested by the ACT Government Solicitor that, should the commissioner wish to inquire into a person's potential liability, and that person has not lodged a return or instrument for assessment, then the commissioner may be able to obtain that information from only third parties and not the potential taxpayer themselves. An amendment will remove this doubt and overcome a possible weakness in the commissioner's information seeking powers. In addition, the proposals will authorise the Minister to make determinations in respect of interest rates applicable on overpaid and underpaid assessments and provide for the introduction of the Supreme Court of the ACT into the structure of appeals against taxation assessments.
The proposed amendments will also provide for the binding of the Crown. By operation of the Interpretation Act 1967, the legislation will bind the ACT, the States and the Northern Territory. It is not proposed to seek to bind the
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