The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has provided further commentary concerning the use of section 87A of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to modify existing planning permits.

The ACNC have announced that up to 1,400 ACNC registered charities face deregistration unless they lodge their Annual Information Statement (AIS) by 30 March 2015. Each of these charities has failed to lodge their AIS for 2 consecutive years.  If deregistered, they will no longer be eligible for charity tax concessions including income tax, fringe benefit tax and GST.

Members in the Planning and Environment List have been increasingly reluctant to allow expert witnesses to introduce changes to a development proposal through expert evidence. Parties are expected to seek expert advice early and incorporate any expert recommendations through the amended plans process enabling due notice to be provided to other parties and the Tribunal of a proposed change.

In the recent Federal Court case of Krok v Commissioner of Taxation[1] a taxpayer was implied to have waived the right to legal professional privilege by disclosing documents which refer to the purpose and reasoning of legal advice. As a result, the taxpayer may be required to discover documents that would otherwise have been protected.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) has announced its decision to deregister the former AFL affiliated charity Balls4Life. Established in 2010, the charity raised money to fund prostate cancer research by selling signed match-day footballs and auctioning them on the Balls4Life website.

You may think your succession planning is complete if you have prepared a will, successive appointors to your trusts and appointed a Power of Attorney. But it’s not!

The ACCC is continuing to crack down on unfair contract terms and has instituted Federal Court proceedings against CLA Trading Pty Ltd trading as “Europcar Australia” (Europcar) that could see refunds to consumers who have paid Europcar money pursuant to the specific contract terms that are currently under the scrutiny of the Court. 

In recent times, the Department of Immigration has significantly stepped up its monitoring of subclass 457 sponsors, with the number of sanctions imposed on sponsoring employers increasing by 68%.

In December 2014, the Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a broad enquiry into Australia's workplace relations framework and make recommendations about how current laws can be improved to maximise outcomes for Australian employers, employees and the economy.