Pitcher Partners Advisors Proprietary Limited ABN 80 052 920 206
Ref: AMK:lg
27 February 2024
Level 13, 664 Collins Street Docklands VIC 3008 Postal Address GPO Box 5193 Melbourne VIC 3001 p. +61 3 8610 5000
Australian Taxation Office By Email: Virginia.Gogan@ato.gov.au Dear Virginia CONSULTATION PAPER – CAPITAL RAISED FOR THE PURPOSE OF FUNDING FRANKED DISTRIBUTIONS 1.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the Australian Taxation Office (“ATO”) consultation paper on the new integrity measure addressing franked distributions funded by capital raisings (“Consultation Paper”), being the measure contained in new section 207-159 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. 1
2.
Pitcher Partners specialises in advising taxpayers in what is commonly referred to as the middle market. Accordingly, we service many taxpayers that would be impacted by the proposed changes to the corporate imputation system.
3.
This submission primarily outlines what we see as being the main issues that the rules give rise to for private groups and what we see as the key areas of priority in need of future public advice and guidance from the ATO in relation to that segment of the market. However, we also provide comments of general application to corporate distributions.
4.
We provide our submissions and commentary in Appendix A. These do not specifically address each of the consultation questions in turn, but nevertheless address most of those questions. We also provide some worked examples in Appendix B for common transactions that arise for private group for which we seek public advice and guidance.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this submission, please contact either Leo Gouzenfiter on (03) 8612 9674 or me on (03) 8610 5170. Yours sincerely
A M KOKKINOS Executive Director
1
All legislative references are to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (“ITAA 1997”) unless otherwise specified.