Allen and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application by the applicant concerning a private ruling. The dispute arose from the applicant's objection to the Commissioner of Taxation's decision regarding whether the applicant was carrying on a business of renting properties during specific tax years. The applicant had initially sought a private ruling on the permissibility of transferring properties to a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) under section 66(2)(b) of the *Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993* (Cth). However, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) advised that it could not provide a binding private ruling on superannuation matters and instead requested separate income tax ruling requests on the question of whether the applicant was "in business."

The Tribunal was required to determine the correctness of the Commissioner's view of the law as it applied to the scheme specified in the ruling, specifically whether the applicant was carrying on a business of renting properties in the 2018 and 2019 taxation years. The Tribunal also had to consider the Commissioner's discretion to request further information and the power of the Tribunal to make decisions in these matters.

The Tribunal found that the Commissioner's initial assessment for the tax years 30 June 2015 to 30 June 2017 remained unaltered. However, for the 2018 and 2019 taxation years, the Tribunal determined that the correct answer to the question posed in the private ruling application, "Are you carrying on a business of renting properties?", was "Yes." The Tribunal noted that the inclusion of more favourable additional information would not have materially altered the scheme to which the ruling related, pursuant to division 359-65(3).