Handbook

This course is designed to be one of the earlier courses in the M Tax program and it is a compulsory course. This course focuses on a selected range of income and capital gains tax (CGT) rules that apply to common transactions and situations which are contentious for tax practitioners and the ATO. The areas covered are often of great significance to taxpayers because of the size of the transaction.

The course commences with selected assessable income items outside CGT (including isolated profit-making transactions, composite compensation receipts) and then moves to the central structure of the CGT regime. From there, select key aspects of the CGT regime are considered including earnout arrangement rules, capital transactions concerning leases and options and selected asset rollover rules. The course then moves to problematic aspects of deductions including non-contemporaneous costs, financing costs, capital expenditures and repairs. A key focus of this analysis is examining the cost recognition rules which are spread across deduction provisions and CGT cost base provisions. The course is then rounded out by an examination of problematic trading stock rules and tax accounting rules.