Miscellaneous 2020

Recognising the cost of purchased goodwill

Source: Australian Tax Forum Journal Article

Published Date: 1 Mar 2020

 

The nature of goodwill for tax purposes was an important issue in Australia long before the adoption of the Commonwealth income tax, with the relationship between goodwill and sales of business premises a central issue in colonial stamp duty assessments (and consequent litigation). Judicial precedents and doctrines were transferred into the income tax arena as a result of a provision in the first Commonwealth income tax law that allowed depreciation of goodwill associated with leasehold interests. Judicial views were subsequently refined when the nature of goodwill was considered in the context of small business concessions for gains on the disposal of goodwill and in an important case in which a vendor created a notional goodwill asset in the course of a financial arrangement. Importantly, since 1964, Australian taxpayers have not been able to depreciate the cost of any form of purchased wasting goodwill. The Australian tax position stands in contrast with that of the UK, Canada, the US and many other countries. This article reviews the concept of goodwill in Australian tax law and suggests allowance of depreciation of purchased goodwill would be a logical reform to make, contributing to better alignment of the law with benchmark income tax principles.

Sorry, this is subscriber only content.

To gain access to this material and much more - Subscribe Now.

(Note: Members can access Taxation in Australia journal articles without a Tax Knowledge Exchange subscription - please log in to access).

Already a Subscriber? Login now

Already a Subscriber? Login now

Details

The material is copyright. Apart any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from The Tax Institute.

Unless expressly stated, opinions are not that of The Tax Institute, which accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within it.

The Tax Institute
(ABN 45 008 392 372 (PRV14016))

("TTI")

The Tax Institute is a Recognised Tax Agent Association (RTAA) under the Tax Agent Services Regulations 2009. 

Copyright Statement

All materials provided on this site are protected by copyright and are owned by or licensed to TTI.

Except as expressly permitted by TTI or the copyright owner, any person or company who uses this site must not use, reproduce, redistribute, retransmit, publish or otherwise transfer, or commercially exploit, the materials or any information, software or other content, in whole or in part, which is available through this site.

Tags

Miscellaneous 2020

Share this page