On 24 August 2011, the Commissioner issued a draft GST Determination – GSTD 2011/D2 – dealing with the arrangement described in TA 2010/1. Essentially, the taxpayer alert and the draft determination cover an arrangement where, as part of an acquisition of shares, services are acquired through an associate of the acquirer in a way that may produce RITCs that would not otherwise be available.
The draft determination explains that in examining an arrangement to acquire a range of services and advice as part of a share acquisition one must examine the nature of the services acquired to determine whether the “bundling” can be enough to make some of the specialist services “arranging services”.
I suppose the answer is that it can if it does.
If all else fails, the Commissioner points out that Division 165 could be considered as well as any argument that the arrangement is a sham.
Comments are due by 7 October 2011