Newsletter
September 2014 Newsletter
Family fails to prove assessments excessive
Six members of a family have been unsuccessful before the AAT in arguing that various amended and default tax assessments were excessive. The AAT heard details of unexplained moneys flowing through family bank accounts, sums paid from an overseas business arrangement, as well as the acquisition of various residential properties in the names of family members, despite the taxpayers’ claim they earned very little income. The Tax Commissioner used the “asset betterment” analysis to raise the assessments. Despite acknowledging inherent flaws in the method used by the Commissioner to derive the tax assessments, the AAT found the family members had failed to establish that the assessments were incorrect and that the amount of money for which tax was levied by the assessment exceeded the actual substantive liability of the taxpayers.
TIP: In making a default assessment, the Commissioner is not required to follow the ordinary processes of ascertaining assessable income and allowable deductions and need not make inquiries of the taxpayer (or the taxpayer’s agent). However, the assessment may be invalid if the Commissioner estimates the taxpayer’s assessable income upon no intelligible basis or simply plucks a figure out of the air.