Franked distributions and capital raisings
This submission relates to the exposure draft legislation Treasury Laws Amendment (Measures for a later sitting) Bill 2022: Franked distributions funded by capital raisings (Exposure Draft), together with the accompanying Explanatory Statement documents, which was released by Treasury for public comment on 14 September 2022.
This submission is made by the Taxation Committee of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia (the Committee).
Key Points
The key matters the Committee wishes to raise in respect of the Exposure Draft are set out below. It considers that:
(a) The retrospective application of the measure is not appropriate.
(b) The Exposure Draft contemplates a potential expansion of the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO’s) ability to issue amended assessments which is unnecessary.
(c) The proposed measure introduces a commercial bias which should not be imposed by the tax system—namely.