What is a private ruling
A private ruling is binding advice that sets out how a tax law applies to you in relation to a specific scheme or circumstance.
A private ruling can cover anything involved in the application of a relevant provision of a tax law, including issues relating to:
- liability
- administration
- procedure and collection
- ultimate conclusions of fact (such as residency status).
See TR 2006/11 Private rulings for more information.
If you would like to discuss your issue with us prior to applying, you can submit an Early engagement for advice request.
Terms we use
- Scheme is a general term we use to facts and circumstances being ruled upon, including the facts, dates, and names of parties. In limited circumstances, it might include assumptions.
- A legal personal representative is
- an executor or administrator of the estate of a person who has died
- a trustee of the estate of a person who is under a legal disability
- a person who holds a general power of attorney that was granted by another person.
General anti-avoidance rules
Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 is a general anti-avoidance rule that can apply in certain circumstances. If Part IVA applies to an arrangement, the tax benefits you obtained from the arrangement can be cancelled – for example, we might disallow a deduction that would otherwise be allowable.
When you apply for a private ruling about an arrangement, you can also ask us to consider whether Part IVA applies to the arrangement.
If you apply for a private ruling on Part IVA, you need to provide detailed information regarding your arrangement, including transaction documents, contracts, and information to support your commercial rationale and circumstances. You will need to provide sufficient information to enable us to fully understand the commercial and tax consequences of that arrangement. If there is insufficient information to determine whether Part IVA applies, it may not be possible to develop the necessary set of facts and circumstances upon which a ruling can be made.
If the ruling requested concerns a prospective arrangement details of the exact circumstances and the implementation of the arrangement (that is, how the proposal is actually carried out) may not be ascertainable.
While assumptions can be made in limited instances, we must be comfortable that such assumptions are appropriate and can be reliably made.
We may decline to make a ruling where:
- details of the arrangement relevant to determining whether Part IVA applies are incomplete or information to support those details is not available, or
- the correctness of the ruling would depend on which assumptions about a future event or other matter were made.
If you ask us to provide a ruling about the application of Part IVA, you may also ask us to refer the Part IVA matter for consideration by the General Anti-Avoidance Rules Panel (GAAR Panel). You may request a referral to the panel either with your ruling application, or after you have lodged your application. See also PS LA 2005/24 Application of General Anti-Avoidance Rules.
When we will and won't refer an application to the GAAR Panel
If you ask us to provide a ruling about the application of Part IVA, you can also ask us to refer the ruling application for consideration by the GAAR panel. If our preliminary view is that Part IVA:
- may apply to the arrangement, we will refer the application to the GAAR Panel. The exception is where your application raises substantially identical issues on facts essentially comparable with a matter previously referred to the Panel.
- does not apply to the arrangement, we will not refer the application for consideration by the GAAR Panel. The exception is where further examination of your requests leads us to conclude Part IVA may apply to the arrangement.
If you don't ask us to make a ruling about the application of Part IVA, we will not refer the application for consideration by the GAAR Panel.