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Australian Taxation Law

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Legislation
3. Interpreting legislation: extrinsic materials
4. Rulings and determinations
5. Cases
6. Using the catalogue
7. Some current Australian texts (post 1992)
8. Looseleaf services
9. Conference/seminar proceedings
10. Tax journals held in the Law Library
11. Journal indexes
12. Electronic databases on taxation
13. Online services
14. Just published and forthcoming publications
15. Dictionaries of legal abbreviations
16. Not held, try ...

1	Introduction

When researching Australian taxation law, the researcher first needs to ascertain if the question revolves around federal or state or international issues. Once this has been addressed articulate more precisely the information required. For example:

• a bill or act of parliament
• extrinsic materials such as explanatory memorandum/note; parliamentary Second Reading speeches (Hansard); government reports
• Taxation rulings
• cases
• commentary
• international treaty.

2	Legislation

Federal bills may be found at the BillsNet site at <http://www.aph.gov.au/parlinfo/billsnet/main.htm
Another useful site which indicates the progress of federal bills is Capital Monitors' Bills List at <http://www.capmon.com>
Legislation consists of acts and statutory rules or regulations. Legislation comes in many formats. What matters most is not the medium, but whether it is up to date. Sometimes you may need the superseded legislation as it was at a particular point of time.

Legislation may be found in the following formats:

• Sessional (as passed by houses of parliament)
• Reprints (as reprinted by government printers and commercial publishers)
• Looseleaf (as published in services by CCH or Australian Taxation Practice)
• Electronic (as available via cdroms or the Internet or online)
• Digested in Australian Current Law Legislation or Australian Legal Monthly Digest

Sometimes the looseleaf versions of legislation are more up to date than the electronic ones, as the services are often updated weekly whereas the electronic databases subscribed to by the Library are for the most part are updated monthly (and sometimes quarterly).

3	Interpreting legislation:
	extrinsic materials

Since 1984, the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s 15AB allowed for the use of extrinsic materials in the interpretation of legislation. The extrinsic material includes:

• Explanatory memoranda (EMs)
• Parliamentary debates (Hansard), in particular Second reading speeches
• Government, royal commission, law reform commission and boards of inquiry reports

In the taxation sphere, we are fortunate in having a wealth of materials available, including:

• Australian Taxation Office: ATO legal database: Extrinsic Materials
• Taxation laws of Australia: legislation and official explanations 1936-90, Index 1936-90 shelved on Level 10 under Australia. Taxation Laws.
• Australian Tax Practice on the web: http://sd.atp-online.com.au/SiteDirector/uni.htm. Bills, explanatory memoranda binder. Includes bills, EMs and Second Reading speeches.
• Australian income tax bills (CCH), Looseleaf and on Law Reserve.
• Computer Law Services (CLS) Taxation Law database. By clicking on the button Indexes, you will see Explanatory memorandum bill titles.
  
• ScalePlus:  http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/ems/browse/TOC.htm. Contains fulltext explanatory memoranda of bills
  
• On the Web, Parliament of Australia Bills Net Explanatory Memoranda introduced since 30 April 1996 (when available) are available at <http://www.aph.gov.au/parlinfo/billsnet/main.htm>.
• Australian Taxation Office ATO Law: the ATO Legal Database <http://www.ato.gov.au/atolaw/index.htm>
  Click on "Browse" then "Extrinsic Materials".

Also, the Commonwealth Department of Treasury, the Treasurer, and Department of Finance and Administration web pages
<http://www.treasury.gov.au>
<http://www.treasurer.gov.au/>
<http://www.dofa.gov.au> are a useful resource for recent bills and related information.

Please note, some EMs have supplementary EMs to the same bill. There are a number of bills held over to the following year and passed, yet the relevant EM will be that introduced with the bill the previous year.

4	Rulings
	and determinations

Income tax rulings and determinations come in a number of formats:

Income tax rulings
Taxation rulings
Miscellaneous tax rulings
Tax determinations
Draft taxation rulings.

In addition to the above are:

Superannuation guarantee rulings and determinations and draft
Training guarantee rulings and determinations and draft.

They are available in:

• Australian tax practice rulings and guidelines, 4 vols. Law Looseleaf 343.94052 88. Also on the Law Library Network as Australian Tax Practice.
  Tax Partner Library CD ROM & Web.
• CCH Australian income tax rulings, 4 vols.
  Closed Reserve.
• Australian Taxation Office homepage <http://www.ato.gov.au Click on Tax Practitioner and then Australian Tax Office's legal database.

5

Cases

Cases are published in various formats. Some good places to look are:

• Looseleaf services (such as Australian Tax Cases) or pamphlet parts (Australian Taxation Reports and other law report series)
• Electronic Databases such as Australian Taxation Practice or CLS Taxation Law
• On the Web at Austlii <http://www.austlii.edu.au>
  Or, SCALEPlus  http://scaleplus.law.gov.au
  Or, The Australian Taxation Office  www.ato.gov.au
• Digested in both Australian Current Law Reporter and Australian Legal Monthly Digest
• Court registry. To get a case here, it helps to have the Plaintiff number.

To see if a case has been reported or judicially considered, try Casebase on the Law Library Network under Legal Electronic Databases, or try the print versions of the Australian Case Citator and the Australasian Case Annotator in Bays 1 and 2 of the reference collection on Level 8 of the Library.

If you have to get a case, make sure you have the correct case name, court and date if possible.

6	Using the catalogue

Where are the books on tax?

It depends on the subject matter and on the format. Some books in the catalogue will be in other libraries of the University of Sydney.

The University of Sydney Library web catalogue is located at <http://www.library.usyd.edu.au:1080/catalogue> When using the catalogue you can search via a number of options, including author, title, keyword and subject. The catalogue is very sophisticated and allows you to do complex searches.

Some points to note are:

Most books on tax will have the subject heading "taxation" so this would be a good starting point, but note below the detailed subdivisions.

Taxation Australia 138 entries

Taxation Australia Cases 4 entries

Taxation Australia Cases Periodicals 6 entries

Taxation Australia Congresses 49 entries

Taxation Australia Mathematical Models 2 entries

A sample record is shown below. Note the location, call number and status of the book.

AUTHOR Cooper, Graeme S.

TITLE Income taxation : commentary and materials / by Graeme S. Cooper,

Richard E. Krever, Richard J. Vann.

PUBLISHER Sydney : Law Book Company, 1989.

DESCRIPTION liv, 1259 p. ; 26 cm.

SERIES LBC casebooks.

NOTE Includes index.

SUBJECT Income tax -- Law and legislation -- Australia -- Cases.

| LOCATION CALL # STATUS |

06 > Law Undergraduate 343.94052 75 CHECK SHELF

07 > Law Undergraduate 343.94052 75 CHECK SHELF

08 > Fisher Undergraduate 343.94052 75 CHECK SHELF

09 > Fisher Undergraduate 343.94052 75 CHECK SHELF

Periodicals (journals) are included in the catalogue (by title), and the information provided includes details of the issues received. Individual journal articles are not catalogued.

7	Some current Australian
	texts (post 1992)

As taxation is such a volatile area, taxation texts often date within months of publication. Listed here is a selection of current texts, no casebooks.

• Abadee, SR & Evans, CC Tax and the private residence, North Ryde, NSW, CCH, 1995.
  Law Research 343.94054 4
• Australian Tax Practice Australian tax handbook (current annual edition).
  LU 343.94052.
  Also available electronically on Australian Tax Practice database
• Burns, L Controlled foreign companies: taxation of foreign source income, Melbourne Longman Professional, 1992.
  LU 336.2070994 17
• Butler, M Australian federal company taxation, Sydney, Butterworths, 1994.
  LU 343.94067 18
• CCH Australian master taxation guide (current annual edition).
  Law Research 343.94052 91 and on Law Reserve.
• Clark, BC & Miller, LG Taxation and sport in Australia, Leichhardt, NSW, Federation Press, 2000.
  Law Research 336.278796 1
• Gates, SJ Tax aspects of corporate restructuring, Sydney, Australian Tax Practice, 1996.
  Law Research 343.94067 19
• Gates, SJ Taxation and insolvency, North Ryde, NSW, Australian Tax Practice, 1998.
• Hamilton, RL, Deutsch, RL & Raneri, JC Guidebook to Australian international taxation, 6th ed. Sydney, Legal Books, 1999.
  Law Research 343.94043 1C.
• Lehmann, G & Coleman, C Taxation law in Australia, 5th ed, Sydney, LBC Information Services, 1998.
  LU 343.9404 48E
• Magney, T & Scholtz, W Tax planning for business, Sydney, Butterworths, 1995.
  Law Research 343.94068 19
• Scholtz, W Australian corporation taxation: dividends, imputation, reorganisations, liquidations. losses, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1995.
  Law Reserve 343.94068 17
• Taylor, J Capital gains tax: business assets and entities, Sydney, LBC Information Services, 1994.
  Law Research 343.9405245 35
• Waincymer, J Australian income tax: principles and policy, 2nd ed, Sydney, Butterworths, 1993.
  LU 343.94052 81A
• Woellner, R et al 2000 Australian taxation law, 10th ed, North Ryde, NSW, CCH, 1999.
  Law Reserve 343.9404 39 I

8	Looseleaf services

The two major Australian taxation looseleaf services are:

• Australian federal tax reporter
• Australian tax practice

In addition to the above there are specialist looseleaf services on capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, sales tax, customs, state taxes including stamp duties, payroll tax and land tax. These and a number of overseas tax looseleaf services are located amongst the looseleaf services on Level 8 (see the Subject Guide to Looseleaf services, held at the Library Desk). Please note the CCH Standard federal tax reporter (US), US Tax Cases and other US tax materials are housed on Level 7 in Bays 14-15.

For tax treaties try:

• ATP: International agreements
• Australian income tax agreements
• Model tax convention on income and on capital
• United states income tax treaties
• International tax treaties of all nations (Level 10)

9	Conference/seminar
	proceedings

The Law Library holds a number of these, particularly those organised by the Taxation Institute of Australia (University of Sydney Postgraduate Studies in the Department of Law). Most of the former are held in Fisher Library. To find them, use the Library Catalogue and type in Taxation Institute of Australia as an Author. To find the latter, use the Keywords option (Words from the Author, Title, Series, Corporate Author or Contents note) and type in: University of Sydney and law and tax*

10	Tax journals held
	in the Law Library

The following journals are held on Level 10 and the current issues are located to the right of the Library entrance.

Australian

• Annual survey of Australian law, look under Income tax
• Australian tax forum
• Australian tax review
• Australian tax week
• GST & indirect taxation bulletin
• GST news
• GST newsletter
• Indirect tax bulletin
• Investment & taxation bulletin
• Journal of Australian taxation
• Retirement & estate planning bulletin
• Revenue law journal
• Taxation in Australia
• Tax specialist
• Tax week
• Weekly tax bulletin (formerly Butterworths Weekly Tax Bulletin)

Overseas

• American journal of tax policy
• Asia Pacific tax bulletin
• British tax review
• Canadian tax journal
• International tax journal
• International tax review
• Investment & taxation bulletin
• Journal of taxation
• National tax journal
• Tax law review
• Tax lawyer

11	Journal indexes

The Law Library subscribes to numerous journal indexes. The following are useful when looking for journal articles on taxation, and are accessible from our Databases web site.

ABI/Inform. This is a business index which includes overseas tax and accounting journals. The focus is US though it includes other jurisdictions including Australia. Many of the articles indexed are available in full text.

AGIS.This is an Australian index published by the Attorney-General's Department.

APAIS. This is published by the National Library of Australia and is a general index of the social sciences.

Business Australia on Disk. This is a collection of Australian business data bases including Australian Accounting and Taxation Database (AATD) produced by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Giblin Working Papers Database produced by Melbourne University and International Taxation Issues Database (INTAX) and Australian Taxation Abstracts Database (TAXABS) produced by the ATO.

EconLit. This is a major index of economics literature.

Index to Legal Periodicals . This is a major general law index. It has an American focus but includes some coverage of other jurisdictions.

Legal Journals Index This is a British publication and its coverage is Britain and Europe. It includes a wide range of financial journals.

LegalTrac. A major general law periodicals index. It is an American index but includes other jurisdictions and has a fairly wide coverage of tax journals.

12	Electronic databases
	on taxation

• Australian Tax Practice. Contents similar to looseleaf service, and includes the full text of Australasian/Australian Tax Reports. CD ROM and Web access.

13	Online services

Web Resources

There are some useful tax and related resources available on the Web:

• University of Sydney Law Library Tax subject guide at <http://www.library.usyd.edu.au:1080/libraries/law/taxation.html>
  This has links to Australian and international tax sites plus indexes to tax resources.
• Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) homepage is <http://www.austlii.edu.au> This contains federal and state legislation and cases and materials supplied by various organisations. There are useful links to a large number of local and international legal sites.
• Australian Taxation Office home page is <http://www.ato.gov.au> Of particular interest are "Media releases" full text from 1995 onwards; "What's new" - which contains the full text of recent booklets, recent media releases etc; and links to other sites.
• Australian Taxation Studies Program (ATAX) - University of New South Wales at <http://www.atax.unsw.edu.au/students.htm> This includes 3 library research guides, notably Research guide to GST.
• Taxation Institute of Australia home page is http://www.taxia.com.au/index.html For members there is access to the TaxTrace Database which contains over 15,000 records and indexing articles from all the major Australian and international tax journals.
• The Treasury (Cth) home page is <http://www.treasury.gov.au> From this site you can view or download the Budget 1996/97. Also see Department of Finance <http://www.finance.gov.au/>
• Tax on Australia, compiled by Craig Latham, home page is <http://www.csu.au/faculty/commerce/account/
  tax/tax.htm>
• Oz Tax Australian Taxation Index, compiled by School of Commerce, Flinders University of South Australia, home page is <http://www.law.flinders.edu.au/tax>
• Lexis <http://lexis.com>
  US database containing full text cases and legislation from around the world, as well as many journals. Note in particular the US Tax Library, which has Tax analyst, Tax Notes, and the Tax Treaties database. Please note that sometimes the databases do not recognise abbreviations such as FCT for Federal Commissioner of Taxation.

Further reading:

Banks, C & Douglas, H Law on the Internet, Sydney, Federation Press, 2000.
Fong, C, 'Tax research and the Internet', (2000) 34, Taxation in Australia, pp 547-51.
Fong, C, 'Trawling the net for tax information', (1999) 15(4), National Accountant, p. 28-29.
Warren, N Guide to tax on the Internet, North Ryde, NSW, Australian Tax Practice, 1996.
Law Research 025.063362 1
McGregor-Lowndes, M & Davidson, A Internet for lawyers, Sydney, LBC Information Services, 1997.
Law Research 004.6702434 1
Dayal, S, E-law: your guide to electronic research, Sydney, Butterworths, 2000.

14	Just published and
	forthcoming publications

To find recent and forthcoming publications use:
Legal research in Australia and New Zealand Online
http://www.butterworths.com.au/cfm/legresearch/lranz.htm

15	Dictionaries of
	legal abbreviations

There are many places to look for legal abbreviations. The ones frequently used in the Law Library and held on Law Reserve are:

• Fong, C & Edwards, A Australian and New Zealand legal abbreviations, 2nd ed, Sydney, Australian Law Librarians' Group NSW Division, 1995
• Kavass, II & Prince, MM World dictionary of legal abbreviations, Buffalo, NY, Hein & Co, 1991- (Looseleaf)
• Prince, MM Beiber's Dictionary of legal abbreviations, 4th ed, Buffalo, NY, Hein & Co, 1993
• Raistrick, D Index to legal citations and abbreviations, 2nd ed, London, Bowker-Saur, 1993

For non-legal abbreviations, suggest:
Jones, DJ Australian dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations, 4th ed, Canberra ALIA Press, 1995.
Law Reference 423.1 80A

16	Not held, try ...

There are some resources which the Law Library does not hold and these are listed as some of you may access to these in other libraries:

Finding Journals:
you can find out which Australian library holds it by looking up the electronic database called SIAL (Serials in Australian Libraries) which is available on the Law Library Network under Legal Reference Tools.

Finding Books etc:
try the UNSW or Macquarie Catalogues (links available from the Library Catalogues Page <http://www.library.usyd.edu.au:1080/catalogue/othercat.html>
or try Australian Libraries Gateway <http://enzo.nla.gov.au/products/alg>
or library staff can access a database called Kinetica for you to see which library holds the title needed.

Online services:

• Australian Tax Practice Latest tax news (daily) alerts subscribers to the latest tax developments via the Internet.
• Butterworths Online
  <http://www.butterworths.com.au>
• CLS Online Tax News Service
  <http://www.cls.com.au> contains daily concise summaries of tax news via a subscription via the Internet.
• Daily Tax News (CCH) is available via CCH and includes the day's tax news. Available by fax, bulletin board or email.