Tax News

A TFN will help you lodge Australian tax online – here’s how to apply Though not strictly necessary, it is highly recommended that you get a tax file number (TFN). A TFN is a unique number issued to you by the ATO to help them keep track of your tax and other financial affairs. If […]

Australian tax dodgers beware: Operation Wickenby goes after Dirty Dancing The ATO’s Operation Wickenby has begun investigating the ‘hit’ musical Dirty Dancing for Australian tax return evasion. Yes, for those of you who haven’t heard, that eternal love story about 17 year old Baby getting swept off her feet (literally and then figuratively) by a dancing camp counselor […]

After the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple takes flak for its jacked up Australian prices As procrastinators all over the country hurry to lodge before the 2011 tax return deadline (31 October – don’t forget!), there was news earlier this week of a so-called “Australia Tax” on Apple products. But this is one tax […]

A fat tax on junk food proposed to combat Australia’s burgeoning obesity problem Obesity used to be just another American export, beamed across the Pacific by movies and reality TV. Those of us who made the trip across the ocean and dared to venture forth into the great American continent may have even seen it […]

Australia’s Wine Equalisation Tax Comes Under Attack Fear not, tax policy enthusiasts, the run up to next month’s tax summit in Canberra isn’t all about the GST. There’s also a minor brouhaha fermenting over wine taxes. The Wine Equalisation Tax (WET), which entitles Australia wine producers to an annual rebate of 29% up to AUS$500,000 […]

Prime Minister Julia Gillard wages her political future on the controversial carbon tax In what should have been a moment of victory for embattled Prime Minister Julia Gillard, her carbon tax legislation passed in the House on October 12 by the narrowest of margins, 74 to 72. And yet, despite the all round smooching, the […]

The ATO’s tax case against actor Paul Hogan is all about residency. You must remember this! Old fella, skin leathered a fabulous wrinkled orange, hair an ever receding yet sprightly tuff of grizzled blond, trademark ocker grin, still quite famous, and fresh, if that’s the word, from burying his much loved one hundred year old […]