Various laws determine the manner in which a company’s assets are distributed to employees and creditors in the event of an insolvency event. In a decision handed down by the New South Wales Supreme Court in 2022, the order of priority of payments in a winding up where employee debts and secured creditor claims exist was considered. The matter was Spitfire Corporation Limited (in liquidation) and Aspirio Pty Ltd (in liquidation) [2022] NSWSC 340. The court considered whether Refundable R&D […]
Industry Innovation and Science Australia (IISA) is the government department responsible for determining whether companies’ activities meet the legislative criteria eligible under the R&D Tax Incentive. The 2021-22 Annual Report for IISA was recently released, and a section of the report provides an update on legal matters and litigation relevant to the department. When comparing the 2021-22 Annual Report with corresponding reports from preceding years, a rapid decline in the number of R&D Tax Disputes arising between companies and IISA is […]
Last decade, there were a number of R&D Tax Disputes heard by the courts with the majority of decisions seeming to find in favour of the regulators that claims (most of which were large) were not eligible. The original Federal Court decision in 2019 regarding Moreton Resources Ltd and Industry Innovation and Science Australia was big news at the time, since it represented one of the few matters where a decision was ruled even partially in favour of a taxpayer. […]
The previous Coalition Federal Government had first announced that it planned to introduce a patent box tax incentive for eligible income associated with new patents in the medical and biotechnology sectors in the May 2021 federal budget. The legislation to enact this was introduced to the lower house in February 2022 (with a proposed start date of July 2022), but was not passed as law before the federal election. There is now a new Labor Government following the federal election and in […]