Subjects 2008
Taxation of Financial Instruments 730844
- Credited Courses: Graduate Diploma in Corporations and Securities Law 538; Graduate Diploma in Corporations and Securities Law 538; Graduate Diploma in International Tax 191; Graduate Diploma in International Tax 191; Graduate Diploma in Tax 187; Graduate Diploma in Tax 187; Graduate Diploma in Transnational Law 333; Graduate Diploma in Transnational Law 333; Master of Commercial Law 504; Master of Commercial Law 504; Master of Intellectual Property Law 277; Master of International Tax 192; Master of International Tax 192; Master of Laws (LLM) 502; Master of Laws by Coursework (LLM) 502; Master of Tax 742; Master of Tax 742
Prerequisite
Successful completion of 'Taxation of Business and Investment Income A' or equivalent professional experience
Objectives
A candidate who has successfully completed the subject should:
- Be able to understand the broad economic features of financial instruments that are relevant to the tax system
- Be able to apply the relevant concepts in working through technical issues raised by the Australian TOFA legislation
- Compare and contrast different country approaches to the subject
- Be able to reason from first principles in understanding and critiquing legislative design.
Syllabus
This subject reviews the Australian TOFA and related rules, as well as the basic policy and doctrinal principles relevant to the income tax treatment of financial instruments generally. The format of the subject is a combination of lectures and case studies.
Principal topics will include:
- General tax policy principles and financial market theories relevant to the income tax treatment of financial instruments
- Debt-financing techniques, particularly the treatment of interest surrogates and hybrid debt instruments
- Equity-financing techniques and, in particular, the classification of instruments as debt or equity
- Income tax treatment of hedging transactions and synthetic instruments
- Income tax issues raised by the cross-border use of financial instruments
- Treatment of derivative instruments under the goods and services tax.
