Tax Deductibility: Advise For Directors Of Ruby Pty Ltd

Australian Law Regarding Taxable Income

Factors to be considered

According to the Australian law, section 6-5 of ITAA 1997, the quantitative salary of an Australian citizen must be included into the taxable resource. The sources from which ordinary income derive into few categories; ex: income from providing personal service, income from property (car rent or house rent) or the money that comes from any business (Zainan et al., 2017). There are other variations of taxable income too that case law has stated about, ex: regular income, periodic income, expected income or earned income. However, the expected income genre furnishes confusion among the taxpayers on the matter of whether it is taxable or not according to the section 6-5 of ITAA 1997.

The incomes that are not included in the ordinary income are provided under section 6-10 of ITAA 1997. These incomes are not outside of the assessable income list depending on multiple provisions (Woellner et al., 2016). These incomes are known as statutory income and statutory income is a part of assessable income.

According to the guideline of ATO, there are two methods that can be followed for preparing accounts for the purpose of taxation. In order to know the methods paragraphs 8 and 9 of Taxation ruling 98/1 should be refereed. The first method deals with the payment that one get in hand and only that money will be dealt with in taxation statement. The due payments of the simultaneous financial year are excluded from the assessable income and this leads to the exclusion from taxation file. Now on the other side, all the accumulated payments or due payments need to be a part of the company’s taxation documentation. If some payment falls into the category of outstanding payment then still it will come under the tax-payable amount. 

The process of accounting that will be followed usually depends on the company size and the area in which the firm operates. Legislation of Australia has stated that business firms that have an annual turnover of $10 million or more than that should use accrual process for accounting. But smaller firms can follow cash basis accounting for taxation. To choose any one accounting method the firm has to be able to fulfil at least one criterion from following list:

• Businesses that fall into the criteria of small business-yearly turnover must be less than $10 million
• Gift reducing entity
• Charitable organisations like charitable trustee, government school etc.

Choice of basis adoption

In this case, it can be seen that Frank owns a medium scale business and the turnover is less than $10 million annually (Tan, Braithwaite & Reinhart, 2016). So Frank can certainly go with any one of the accounting method among the available methods. Paragraph no.27 of TR 98/1 states that taxpayers can decide the accounting method for the payment. Paragraphs 8 and 9 of TR 98/1 consist of the accounting methods with the names of Earnings methods and Receipts methods. Paragraph 17 of TR 98/1 says that the taxpayer must choose the specific method that goes the best with the circumstances and which will help perfectly to show the accurate income. The next two paragraphs 18 and 20 state that cash method is fitting for the employees, business or charitable organizations where the income source is various. Paragraph 20 is of the view that Accrual method is satisfactory for manufacturing as well as trading business firms. From the discussion it can be seen that accrual method is the most suited for Frank (Snape& De Souza, 2016).

Advice for Directors of Ruby Pty Ltd regarding Tax Deductibility

Right of insist by Tax Commissioner

Taxation guidelines do not allow the Taxation Commissioner to force anyone to follow a particular method of accounting (Sawyer, 2016). It can be seen in the legislation clearly that that if the firm follow the mentioned criteria of the legislation then it can go with any of the method. So it’s clear here that if a company is of small or medium sized means the company’s turnover is less than $10 million then the firm can choose any of the accounting methods that suits the business’s needs. If a conflict arises between the Commissioner of Taxation and the suffragist, specific rule of arrangement will be applied on specific transactions. However, it is completely beyond the scope for the Commissioner of Taxation to force someone to select a particular accounting method as far as the case law of Henderson v FCT is concerened.

Appropriate Basis for Frank

If the financial condition of Frank is analysed then it can be understood that it will be beneficial for Frank if he chooses accrual accounting in the upcoming year too. This method is more acceptable for his firm. The citations of the case laws such as Carden’s case and Henderson v FCT it is stated about the appropriate accounting method of the skill based activities when the business is constantly growing. The outstanding payments are more in number and this need to be included in the taxation report for the proper evaluation of the business. So, it’s advised to Frank to go for the accrual method even in the coming year also (Richardson, 2016).

Cash/Accrual Criterion Relevancy

The traditional criteria are still not irrelevant for the cash/accrual distinction because it is still not possible for the current accounting software to tell the difference between the cash/accrual methods. Companies should follow traditional criteria of accounting as it’s important to maintain a standard distinction between the cash/accrual methods (Basu, 2016). If the software cannot differentiate between the two accounting methods then it will be problematic. 

Conclusion

If the legislation and accounting method then its necessary that legal procedure and the criteria must be exactly like as it is told in the taxation guideline. Frank’s business is growing gradually and he is able to pocket some contracts and at the verge of increasing his business. So he cannot neglect the taxation guidelines. The negligence will only harm his business and to control any dispute and to decrease the tax amount it’s really important for Frank to follow the necessary guidelines.

Rental Property Expense

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 states under section 8-1 that during the calculation of payable tax the expenses company have made to produce assessable income will not be included into the payable tax amount. Section 6 of the same act is determining the contrast between perceptible income and exempt income (McGregor-Lowndes, 2016). But it’s very important to keep in mind that the cost company has made to produce the calculable income will only be deducted from the payable tax. Hence it has proved that the cost company has made to assemble the exempted income will not be deducted from the payable tax amount. Section 17 of Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 has said that the GSTis added with the product price, is shown as the consumption tax. Section 25-26 of the same act explains briefly deductible and non-deductible taxes. Section 28 of the same act narrates the process of how to deduct tax (Braithwaite, 2017).

In the following case study, it is important to give an idea to the Ruby Pty Ltd. directors about the possible tax deductions. Regarding the transactions made by Ruby Pty Ltd. Below mentioned suggestions can be made:

 A) Rental property expense of $ 8,500 for replacement of old and damaged kitchen fittings.

Section 8 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 has stated the guideline that payable tax won’t include the managerial cost of the company. The assessable income has to face the deductions and this withdrawal needs to be made against the running year’s income. Presently Ruby Pty Ltd annually incomes around $35,000. But the kitchen maintenance costs $8,500. Henceforth this $8,500 won’t be a part of annual income and will be withdrawn from the company’s rent (Gupta & Sawyer, 2015). The taxable rent of Ruby Pty Ltd is 26,500 in the current year. Section 25-10 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 states that this amount comes under the income where the company has to pay tax. 

B) $7000 legal expense for settling a negligence claim.

For claiming of the subtraction the company needs to claim only the cost that is associated with rental income. If the case is analysed then it can be seen that one of the tenant’s visitor got injury from slipping at the steps. She has filed against the company a case stating that the injury is a result of the faulty manufacturing products used by the company. Therefore the company has to pay $7,000 (Frecknall-Hughes &Kirchler, 2015). The expense didn’t get included in the conclusive income tax amount as the reason of the cost is requital for construction defect. Other than this the payment was due till company’s year ending date. Section 26.5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 states that subtraction from payable tax is not possible on penalty charges (Braithwaite, Reinhart & Job, 2018).

Legal Expense for Settling a Negligence Claim

C) An outgoing ($ 750,000) comprising of claim amount for faulty parts.

In the next scenario we will see, the company has accepted the low quality material they had provided to their clients and now they have to accept the defective products as return and the client is asking for repayment from the company. The car manufacturing company placed law charge against the company in Federal court. The issue resolved in November of 2017 and the decision went against the company. So the company didn’t deny the claim and the client got $750,000 as compensation. This huge loss of the company is seen as the charge for their supply of faulty material (Davison, Monotti & Wiseman, 2015). In the case of Helsby Cables Ltd v. Atherton [1926] there was a proper distinction between the revenue and capital expenditure. In accordance with this, the ongoing expenses will be considered as the revenue expenditure. Thus, the Section 26-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 states that the penalty the company has borne is not the deductible amount from the company’s taxable income.

D) Provisions to the tune of $ 100,000 made in relation to the above claims.

The cost Ruby Pty Ltd had to bear for the compensation to the car manufacturing company has led to the tension of the company directors as this cost has lowered the profit amount. The directors came up with an idea of accumulating a fund amount worth of $100,000 for future claiming issues (D’Ascenzo, 2015). Section 15 of Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 provides that the accumulated amount is not assessable income. Therefore, this amount is not included into the deductible tax amount. 

E) Market research cost i.e. $ 220,000 which has been paid to consultant.

In the last part it’s said that the company was willing about re-entering into the car parts production industry. Company directors planned to go with a new alloy which will ultimately prove profitable. They paid $220,000 to the consultant that was investigating the matter of their re-entering into their old industry (Cao et al., 2015). But after researching on the industry for quite a sometime and noticing the uncertainty of motor industry the directors decide not to move further with the plan and ceased the project idea. This whole process comes under the regulation of section 25-40 of the income tax assessment act 1997. The act consisted of the rule that if a company faces a loss from the amount of profit then the company can deduct that money from the amount of payable tax. So, here the total cost can be subtracted from the income tax report (Burton &Karlinsky, 2016).

Outgoing Claim Amount for Faulty Parts

Conclusion

The whole case study is being referred to the division 25 and 26.These divisions deal with the discussion of deductible and non-deductible expenses for the calculation of tax return. We are seeing here total five situations of the company where three times the company faces non-deductible cost and the other two times company had to bear deductible cost. The directors of the company need to keep in mind the legislations and circumstances of the cases during the preparation of taxation report to enjoy the deduction on the payable tax amount. 

Reference List

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Braithwaite, V. (2017). Taxing democracy: Understanding tax avoidance and evasion. Routledge.

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Davison, M., Monotti, A., & Wiseman, L. (2015). Australian intellectual property law. Cambridge University Press.

Frecknall-Hughes, J., &Kirchler, E. (2015). Towards a general theory of tax practice. Social & Legal Studies, 24(2), 289-312.

Gupta, R., & Sawyer, A. (2015). The costs of compliance and associated benefits for small and medium enterprises in New Zealand: Some recent findings. Austl. Tax F., 30, 135.

McGregor-Lowndes, M. (2016). Lawyers, reform and regulation in the Australian third sector. Third Sector Review, 22(2), 33.

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Sawyer, A. (2016). Complexity of tax simplification: A New Zealand perspective. In The Complexity of Tax Simplification(pp. 110-132). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Snape, J., & De Souza, J. (2016). Environmental taxation law: policy, contexts and practice. Routledge.

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