Assessment: Problem solving question
Word limit: 3,000 words
Task
George was born in Canada and migrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. He was a citizen of Canada and New Zealand. In 1990 he migrated to Australia. In 1991 he was living in a house which he had purchased in Sydney in that year. He also invested properties in Melbourne in 1997 and another at the Gold Coast in 2003. In October 2012 he moved to Brunei after taking a job offer to join Snail International Ltd as a chief financial controller with a salary of $120,000 per annum. As part of his remuneration package the company provided him accommodation for 6 months' worth $7,800. He subsequently purchased a house where he lived and in which he intended to permanently reside. In the first 2 months of working in Brunei his salary was banked into his Australian bank account, he then opened a bank account in Brunei.
He sold off the following assets that belonged to him during the year ended 30 June 2015.
No Asset Purchase date Cost Disposal Date Sale Price
1 Shares in Wales Ltd 22 July 2007 $2,000 3 April 2014 $4,000
2 Shares in Blues Ltd 3 May 2008 $3000 5 May 2014 $2,500
3 Investment property in Gold Coast 30 June 2003 $300,000 22 February 2014 $400,000
4 Artwork 4 July 2006 $300 11 January 2014 $1,200
5 Coin set 5 April 2006 $3,000 12 February 2014 $3,500
6 Ford Falcon 11 May 2007 $35,000 2 June 2015 $6,000
7 Camera 6 February 2005 $3,000 5 August 2015 $2,500
Wales Ltd and Blues Ltd are both Australian tax resident companies.
George has a carried forward losses from both general assets of $5,000 and from collectables of $1,000 for the year ended 30 June 2014.
His wife, Maria is a doctor who runs her own practice in Sydney. She remained in Sydney to continue her practice while looking for a suitable doctor to buy out the practice. In March 2015 she managed to sell off her practice and moved to Brunei to join George.
George visited Australia on December 2012 and February 2014 for work purposes. While he was there he stayed in a hotel paid by his employer.
George leased his house in Sydney to his son Bob under an informal agreement for $300 per week. The market rate of the rent is $400 per week. Bob had agreed to oversee George's property in Sydney for the reduced rent.
All amounts are in Australian dollars
Required
1. Advise whether George is a tax resident of Australia for the tax year ended 30 June 2015. You are required to cite the relevant case law and statute in explaining your advice to George.
2. Assuming George is a tax resident, what is his assessable income for the year ended 30 June 2015.
Refer to the relevant case law and statute law in your answer. You must read the presentation guidelines in the subject outline. Your answer should not exceed 3,000 words, excluding the bibliography. In planning and preparing your response you may find the following site useful:
http://bit.ly/FoBAcademic-Writing-Skills
Rationale
This assessment task covers topics 1 to 8 and has been designed to ensure that you are engaging with the subject content on a regular basis. :
This assignment has been designed to assess your ability to:
• gather and integrate your knowledge on the topics covered thus far;
• investigate in depth the cases, rulings and legislation that are fundamental to taxation law;
• demonstrate your ability to apply that knowledge to a hypothetical, practical situation;
• exercise critical and reflective judgment;
• demonstrate your ability to conduct research using provided materials as well as other legal resources;
• develop your written skills; and
• demonstrate time management skills.
Students should be able to identify and apply legislation and case law to the issues identified as well as demonstrate the ability to analyse the issues fully and discuss the application of taxation principles.
Criteria
In assessing your assignment the marker will expect you to:
• present a report advising your client in a readable and coherent format;
• use appropriate language, correct spelling and grammar;
• identify and analyse relevant issues;
• explain and apply relevant cases, rulings and legislation;
• reach a sound and well-reasoned conclusion;
• use appropriate referencing; and
• demonstrate time management skills.
Your mark will depend upon the degree in which you demonstrate your understanding of the topics covered thus far, and the overall presentation of your advice to your client. For guidance, please refer to the section. "Presentation". The following criteria will form the basis of assignment of marks for the problem solving question.
Identification of relevant legal issues Comprehensive coverage and identification of all legal issues, which are discussed with consideration and evidence of all contextual factors and analysis of the relevant law. Correctly identifies legal issues and formulates them with consideration of contextual factors and analysis of relevant law, with only minor errors. Identifies and correctly formulates most major legal issues and supported by relevant law. Identifies some legal issues. May or may not formulate them correctly. Considers and links to relevant law.
Explanation of law and citation of relevant legal authority Provides a complete explanation of the law, justified by relevant law, with no errors. Discussion identifies key statute and case law stating relevant principles and shows insight in identification and discussion of potentially hidden issues. Research of relevant legal authority shows a breadth of investigation through detailed analysis and discussion. Provides a comprehensive explanation of the law of agency and partnership with few errors, substantiated by relevant case and statute law stating relevant principles.. Research of relevant legal authority shows a breadth of investigation through detailed analysis and discussion. Provides a substantial explanation of the law of agency and partnership but with some errors, substantiated by significant legal authority in the form of statute and case law. Provides a basic explanation of the law of agency and partnership, but with significant errors, substantiated by some legal authority.
Application of legal principles to the facts and tax computations. Applies the law to the facts so as to reach a correct conclusion on all issues, with no errors. Argument discusses linkages between facts and the law and considers counter-arguments, completes tax computations correctly if required and evaluates the impacts of applying the law to the situation considering a broad range of factors that may affect the application. Conclusion draws together advice for client. Applies the law correctly to the facts so as to address all issues, with only minor errors. Argument discusses linkages between facts and the law, completes tax computations correctly if required and evaluates the impacts of applying the law to the situation considering factors that may affect the application. Conclusion draws together advice for client. Applies the law correctly to most issues arising from the facts, but with some errors. Argument discusses application of the law and completes tax computations correctly if required with some minor errors. Conclusion summarises advice for client. Makes a basic attempt to apply the law to the facts, but applies wrong law and / or contains significant errors in the application. Argument summarises application of the law, formula for tax computation identified and completed with errors. Advice to client is incomplete.
Compliance with the Style Guide, tax computation format and overall structure. Uses Style Guide comprehensively, accurately and consistently. Uses ILAC model and tax computation format. Extremely well structured and organised, with one main argument introduced per paragraph, supported by well-written supporting sentences. Uses Style Guide accurately and with only minimal errors. Uses ILAC model and tax computation format. Well structured, with one main argument introduced per paragraph. Adequate use of Style Guide, with some errors or lapses. Uses ILAC model and tax computation format and is clearly structured. Limited or inconsistent use of Style Guide. Some attempt at use of ILAC model and tax computation format and at structuring of answer.
Written expression and editing. Uses appropriate academic writing which is formal, impersonal and which contains no spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Paper demonstrates careful proofreading. Uses appropriate academic writing which is formal, and impersonal with only very minor spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Paper demonstrates careful proofreading. Uses appropriate academic writing which is formal and impersonal, with a few spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Paper demonstrates evidence of proofreading. Significant spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but the paper is readable and demonstrates some attempt at proofreading.
Presentation
Your answer should not exceed the 3,000 word limit, excluding the bibliography. The assignment must be typed in Times New Roman, 12 point font, 1.5 spaced and with at least a 2.5cm margin on each side. You must use APA referencing system. Case and statute names should be italicised.
Please comply with the following style guide:
1. Do not re-state the question.
2. Use in-text referencing. Do not use footnotes.
3. Names of statutes should be italicised, and followed by the jurisdiction not in italics, for example: Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth). Note the abbreviation for ‘Commonwealth' is ‘Cth' not ‘Cwlth'.
4. The names of the parties must be italicised, but the citation must not, for example: Smith v Jones (1967) 345 CLR 34.
5. An in-text reference to a book should be structured as follows: (Latimer, 2010, p. 75). There is no need to put the author's initial. Note the positioning of brackets, stops and commas. You use ‘pp.' only if referring to more than one page. If you are referring to a book with more than one author, the in-text reference would be as follows: (Smith et al, 2002, p. 78).
6. An in-text reference to the subject's Modules should be structured in brackets as per the following example - obviously you will alter the reference depending on the subject, year of study and Module number: (CSU LAW505 Modules, 2015, Topic 7).
7. Do not start a new line simply because you are starting a new sentence.
8. Be careful of apostrophes: director's = of a director, directors' = of many directors, directors = many directors. Also particularly prevalent is confusion between its (it possessive) and it's (contraction of -it is-).
9. The following words always start with a capital letter: Commonwealth, State, Act, Bill, Regulation, Constitution, Parliament. Do not unnecessarily capitalise other words.10. Do not use terms such as can't, won't, don't and shouldn't, neither should one use -i.e.- and -e.g.- in formal writing.
11. A sentence must always begin with a full word and a capital letter - so a sentence would start ‘Section 55 says...', not ‘S 55 says...' or ‘s 55 says...'
12. Start each paragraph on a new line, and leave a clear line gap after the preceding paragraph.
13. You must put page numbers on your assignment.
14. Quotations, and excerpts from legislation should be indented from the rest of the text in a separate paragraph. The text in quotations should not be in italics.
15. You must end your assignment with a bibliography that is divided into three separate parts, listing statutes, cases and books / articles / on-line Modules.
16. A listing of a book in a bibliography should appear in accordance with the following format: Barkoczy, S (2015). Foundation of Taxation Law 2015, (7th edition), North Ryde: CCH. If listing a book with multiple authors, do so as follows:
Sadiq, K, Coleman, C, Hanegbi, R, Jogarajan, S, Krever, R, Obst, W, and Ting, A (2015), Principles of Taxation Law 2015, (8th edition), Pymont: Thomson Reuters
17. When listing statutes at the end of your assignment you should conform to the format: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth). List the statute only once - you do NOT list individual section numbers relied on. You should not list textbooks as the source of Acts - the Act itself is its own source.
18. When listing cases conform to the format: Allied Mills Industries Pty Ltd v FC of T 89 ATC 4365.
19. When listing article conform to the format: Jones, J 'The new analysis of law' (2010) 4 Journal of Recent Law 34.
20. When listing CSU Modules conform to the following format: CSU LAW505 Modules.
21. Make sure that your sentences are grammatical - it may be useful to read your assignment out loud if you have any doubts about this.
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL LOSE MARKS IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY WITH THIS STYLE GUIDE.
Requirements
Assignments must be submitted through turnitin. The lecturer will announce if a hard copy submission is required addition to turnitin submission.