New Taxation Administration Regulations 2017 Notified

Friday 22 September 2017 @ 10.21 a.m. | Taxation

The new Taxation Administration Regulations 2017  (Cth) (“the Regulations”) have been notified on the Federal Register of Legislation.  The Regulations replace the Taxation Administration Regulations 1976, which were scheduled to sunset, and have been made under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) (”the Act”).  The new Regulations will commence operation on 1 October 2017.  The release of the new Regulations follows a three week public consultation period, with an exposure draft released on the Treasury website on 31 July 2017.

The New Regulations

According to an Explanatory Statement issued with the Regulations:

The Regulations remake and improve the Taxation Administration Regulations 1976 by repealing redundant provisions, simplifying language and restructuring provisions for ease of navigation. The key changes are:

  • the structure of the Regulations has been changed from that used in the Taxation Administration Regulations 1976 to follow the Act more closely;
  • headings to Parts of the Regulations have been updated to state whether they relate to the body of the Act or Schedule 1 to the Act;
  • expressions in sections that are made for the purpose of Schedule 1 to the Act take their meaning from the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, rather than the body of the Act. The effect of this is that a number of expressions that were duplicated from the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 have been removed; and
  • certain provisions that deal with withholding payments to foreign residents have been restructured so that the provisions that prescribe what types of payments are covered are separate from the provisions for working out the amount of the payment.

These changes are not intended to affect the substantive meaning or operation of the provisions.

Other changes that have been made include:

  • Changes to section 7 of the Regulation to refer to offences as they are outlined in subsections 8C(1), 8D(1) or 8D(2) of the Act, rather than stating the matters or things the person mentioned in the subsections refused or failed to do
  • Changes to section 11 to update the reference to the ‘Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’ to ‘the Secretary of the Department administered by the Minister administering the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act 1967’. This change will mean that that the Regulations do not need to be updated in the future because of Ministerial or Departmental changes.
  • Changes to Part 2 Division 4, which relates to the service of documents, to “reflect the increased use of digital communication in the Australian community”.  The Commissioner will now be able to serve electronic copies of documents or an electronic notice to an electronic address, where a person has nominated this as their preferred address for service.
  • Changes to section 26 to simplify rounding rules for the purposes of the PAYG withholding amount rules.

TimeBase is an independent, privately owned Australian legal publisher specialising in the online delivery of accurate, comprehensive and innovative legislation research tools including LawOne and unique Point-in-Time Products. Nothing on this website should be construed as legal advice and does not substitute for the advice of competent legal counsel.

Sources:

Taxation Administration Regulations 2017 (Cth) & Explanatory Statement - available from TimeBase's LawOne service

Related Articles: