Arnold Bloch Leibler partner Paul Sokolowski is quoted in the Australian Financial Review and The Australian on the landmark decision this week in the High Court in favour of his client, Steven Bendel. The suburban accountant won his long-run tax avoidance case over the Australian Taxation Office, with judges ruling on Wednesday that Bendel and his company did not owe more than $1 million in additional taxes, penalties and interest.
The AFR describes the decision that an unpaid entitlement from a trust to a company is not a loan for tax purposes as having wide-ranging consequences for hundreds of thousands of taxpayers.
“The David versus Goliath case centred on whether an unpaid present entitlement (UPE) – where a trust assigns profits to a corporate beneficiary on paper, but the money is retained in the trust – should be treated as a loan under the Tax Act’s Division 7A anti-avoidance provisions.”
Paul is quoted describing the decision as welcome, not only for Bendel but also “for taxpayers who finally have conclusive guidance on past distributions and when deciding on trust distributions to companies before the end of the current financial year and, perhaps, the next two”.
To read coverage of the ruling in the AFR, click here.
To read coverage in The Australian, click here.
The High Court decision generated extensive other coverage, including from Accountants Daily, Bloomberg, Smart Company and Capital Brief.
