Physiotherapy Rehab Centre Pty Ltd and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation)

This matter came before Deputy President Bernard J McCabe of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal concerning an application for an expedited hearing. The dispute involved the eligibility for JobKeeper payments under section 19 of the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Rules 2020, and the Commissioner of Taxation's contentions regarding the temporal limitations on the Tribunal's review process.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether section 19 of the Rules imposed a temporal limitation on the Tribunal's review of the Commissioner's decisions, thereby potentially affecting the Commissioner's obligation to implement a favourable decision made after a certain date. This question was central to the established review process under Part IVC of the *Taxation Administration Act 1953* (Cth).

The Deputy President expressed difficulty in reconciling the Commissioner's submissions with the statutory framework. He noted that section 14ZZL(1) of the *Taxation Administration Act 1953* (Cth) mandates the Commissioner to give effect to a Tribunal decision within 60 days of it becoming final, with no other temporal limitation mentioned in the relevant legislation. The Deputy President referred to *Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation* [2019] FCA 1582, where Moshinsky J considered a similar argument regarding the importation of time limits from other legislation into the objection and review process, and was not immediately attracted to it, finding that the *Taxation Administration Act 1953* (Cth) provided a separate dispute resolution mechanism that preserved the rights of taxpayers. The Deputy President indicated that the Commissioner would need to demonstrate how the Rules modified the statutory language of Part IVC to import a different temporal limitation. The Tribunal granted the expedited hearing.