Obviously, there has been an enormous amount of interest in relation to the Rinehart trust dispute matter over an extended period of time.
Interestingly, the centrepiece of the dispute, at least from a tax perspective, does not always receive a significant amount of attention.
Given what has been disclosed publicly, there are many who believe that Ms Rinehart successfully obtained a private ruling from the Tax Office in relation to whether there were any capital gains tax (CGT) consequences of the trust, which is the focus of the dispute, vesting when Ms Rinehart’s youngest child turned 25.
While it cannot be certain, it appears that private ruling authorisation No. 1012254771092 relates to the Rinehart matter.
The private ruling carefully considers whether CGT event E5 occurs on the vesting of a trust. CGT event E5 is said to occur when a beneficiary becomes ‘absolutely entitled' to a CGT asset of trust as against the trustee.
The ruling then goes onto explore in some detail the broad position that the Tax Office adopts in these areas based on Taxation Ruling 2004/D25 (TR 2004/D25). The Tax Office confirms that while TR 2004/D25 remains in draft, so long as it is not withdrawn, it does represent its view of the law.
Based on the analysis of TR 2004/D25, the ruling concludes that because no beneficiary was able to call for any one or more of the assets to be transferred to them, they were not entitled to any assets as against the trustee, and therefore, CGT event E5 did not occur on the vesting of the trust.
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