ATO

Holding Redlich has bolstered its tax team by hiring the Australian Taxation Office's former deputy chief tax counsel.

Shell’s Australian arm has succeeded in challenging a finding by the ATO that it needed to pay an additional $99 million in capital gains tax after it disposed of its 34.27 per cent holding in Woodside Petroleum.

The Full Court has rejected an appeal by the tax office over the classification of a redundancy payment, finding that an early learning centre worker who was offered reduced hours and pay as part of a restructure was made redundant.

The tax office has won the appointment of special purpose liquidators to entities behind a number of Queensland construction projects, as it seeks to claw back a claimed $16 million debt.

Two units of Queensland real estate firm Coronis have lost a fight with the tax office over service fee deductions claimed for payments to related entities for the use of the Coronis trade mark, among other trust assets.

Fresh off a record settlement for the Robodebt scandal, the government is facing a new class action over a law that retroactively allowed it to impose card payment surcharges, which the suit says amounts to unjust enrichment.

The tax commissioner has suffered a major loss in a dispute with Malaysian power company YTL Power over a $948 million capital gain from the sale of its stake in South Australia-based ElectraNet in 2022.

Software giant Oracle has won its bid to stay a $252 million fight with ATO over royalties, with the Full Federal Court finding the cases would not provide guidance in 15 other software disputes about the operation of the royalty tax. 

A judge has refused to join the ATO as an interested party to a case over the receivership of investment platform Brite Advisors, after the receivers worried they could be on the hook for $75.4 million in capital gains tax. 

A judge has ordered federal prosecutors to drop a criminal tax fraud case against a medical researcher, finding an ATO officer lied and tampered with evidence during the probe.