Hedges and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation)

The taxpayer, Hedges, appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) against a decision by the Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation) to disallow an objection. The dispute concerned the assessable income of the taxpayer for the 2009 financial year.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was to determine the correct financial year in which certain amounts should be included in the taxpayer's assessable income, specifically whether they were received or applied for the taxpayer's benefit in the 2009 financial year.

Deputy McCabe P reasoned that the taxpayer should be taken to have received the amounts in question at the point the monies came into his hands or were applied at his direction or for his benefit. Applying this principle, the Tribunal found that the amounts were applied pursuant to clause [26] in the 2009 financial year. Consequently, those amounts were correctly included in the taxpayer's assessable income for that year.

The Tribunal affirmed the objection decision of the Commissioner.