The Chair welcomed members of the working group and thanked them for submitting issues. He said that he thought the forum would provide a good opportunity for the issues to be discussed and would assist the Tax Office in considering an appropriate response to those issues.
He advised that Treasury was unable to attend the meeting but had expressed interest in the issues and in attending future meetings of the working group.
He suggested that the issues would need to be better understood and prioritised and consideration would then be given to the appropriate form in which each issue might be addressed.
He noted that Practice Statements might be used to address issues relating to administration and that Taxation Determinations might be appropriate for discrete interpretative issues. He said that Taxation Determinations (TD) would usually enable more timely advice of formal Tax Office views than Taxation Rulings because a Ruling often covers a number of interpretive issues and entails lengthier work and approval processes.
It was anticipated that the working group would meet every three months, and it was likely that the next meeting would be in late February 2009 – the date will be set to facilitate Treasury’s attendance.
He reminded attendees that the activities of the working group and its members are governed by the working group’s terms of reference and the NTLG Finance and Investment Sub-group’s charter.
The chair said that Jacinta Fitton would undertake the responsibilities of Chairperson and Richard Krone would undertake the role of Secretariat at future meetings of the working group.
The Chair opened up the meeting for a discussion of the issues.
The Property Council of Australia's (PCA) member initially referred to agenda item 2.2 – the issues listed in Attachment B to the agenda. He suggested that some of these issues might be addressed by administrative or interpretative approaches and others might require a change in the law. He confirmed after enquiry by the chair that no discussion with Treasury had occurred on the issues to date.
He then referred to agenda item 2.1 and spoke on the issues set out in Attachment A to the agenda.
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