The transitional period for trustees of public ancillary funds to amend their fund’s governing rules to comply with the public ancillary fund guidelines closes on 1 July 2015. Public ancillary funds and their trustees must comply with these guidelines if the funds are to remain endorsed as deductible gift recipients.

As well as the fund losing entitlement to DGR endorsement, failure to comply with the guidelines could lead to the trustee incurring administrative penalties.

The Federal Government has announced as part of its 2015 Federal Budget, a $5.5 billion package for business which is aimed to encourage entrepreneurship, growth and the creation of jobs. Small Business, being entities that that have an annual turnover of less than $2 million, make up 90 percent of incorporated business and have been the winners in the 2015 Budget. 

Farmers are relieved by the Federal Government’s decision to bring forward the start date for new farm tax breaks.  

In a recent appeal to the Family Court, it was determined that there is no binding rule for determining “special contributions” to a relationship. The Court decided that a wealthy couple should share their assets equally, despite the husband claiming that his special skills meant that he should have 70% of the assets.

On 29 April 2015, the Victorian Supreme Court handed down its judgment in Burbank Australia Pty Ltd v Owners Corporation PS 447493 [2015] VSC 160, which concerned an appeal from a decision of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, in relation to allegations of defective building works in the common property of the ‘Waterford Towers’ apartment building built by Burbank in the Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong.

Schools collect and receive personal and sensitive information on a daily basis. What are the legal requirements for managing and using this data? Much of the personal and sensitive information collected by schools is, of course, essential to their day-to-day running.

Congratulations to Facebook for introducing a system to allow some management of a person’s Facebook account after the person’s death.

In its latest policy change on paid parental leave, the Coalition Government has proposed to remove parents' ability to "double dip" paid parental leave entitlements from 1 July 2016 in a bid to save almost $1 billion dollars over four years.

Contrary to common belief, local councils and officers acting on their behalf are subject to the provisions of the Competition & Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), just like any other entity engaged in trade or commerce.

In budget papers released on 12 May the Federal Government has confirmed funding to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) will continue until 2019.  However, the charity regulator will see a modest reduction in its funding from $14.8 million in the next financial year to $13.2 million in 2018-19.

According to the latest budget handed down on Tuesday night from Treasurer Joe Hockey, penalty units (ie. fines) for breaching federal laws are set to rise from $170.00 to $180.00 (per unit) from 31 July 2015.

The Tribunal recently commented upon the role that expert witnesses play in proceedings before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. 

On 1 May 2015, the President of the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) issued an advisory opinion in response to the Victorian Small Business Commissioner’s request as to whether a landlord of commercial premises can pass on the costs of Essential Safety Measures (ESM) and certain repair and maintenance obligations for retail premises to tenants.  The term ESM covers measures prescribed by building law for safety and fire protection.

Following on from an advisory report into the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 (Cth) (Data Retention Bill), released on 27 February this year, the Federal Government has now accepted recommendations to develop a mandatory data breach notification scheme.

The Government released draft legislation yesterday in relation to extending the unfair contract term protections to small businesses. 

Once the legislation has been passed, a court will have the ability to declare an unfair term in a standard form small business contract void. Under the proposed legislation, a contract will be a small business contract if:

In a recent speech to the Community Council for Australia forum, Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg flagged that the Abbott Government plan to make changes to the way in which private ancillary funds can distribute their assets and wind-up

The Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission have issued a final warning to 6,000 charities that face deregistration for failing to lodge their AIS for two consecutive years. If deregistered, these charities will lose their entitlement to tax concessions

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) requires organisations to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that all Personal Information held is secure and protected from misuse, interference, loss and disclosure.

1380 charities, including 170 Victorian charities, will no longer be eligible for tax concessions as the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) has revoked their registration. These charities have been deregistered due to failure to lodge their Annual Information Statement (AIS) for two consecutive years.  

The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) has announced its decision to revoke the registration of Queensland charity ‘Get Rid of SIDS Project Inc’, a charity reportedly linked to controversial anti-vaccine lobbyists Stephanie Messenger and Sherri Tenpenny. The charity was established in 2010 and has since sought donations to fund a study into whether toxic gases coming from mattresses cause SIDS.