Engage with us for your commercial deal

What is a commercial deal?

We define a commercial deal as any significant business transaction that may affect the structure of your business. Some examples of this may include:

• financing and refinancing
• initial public offerings
• mergers and acquisitions
• restructures
• sale of business (partial or complete) or business assets
• sale of commercial property
• share buybacks
• takeovers.

Our commercial deals service can provide practical certainty on these events. The ideal time for engagement is after the transaction completes and prior to lodgment. We can provide certainty on the tax treatment of a settled fact pattern before you lodge.

You can ask to talk to us about your commercial deal by emailing eerequest@ato.gov.au

We also have an active focus on foreign residents disposing of taxable Australian property.

For examples of the program providing tax certainty, see our Commercial deals case studies.

Advantages of engaging with us

If you have recently completed a commercial deal, we can work with you to understand your circumstances and address any potential issues as soon as possible.

We can:

• help resolve tax technical issues relating to the deal
• work towards agreement on the tax position you intend to take
• help you meet your tax obligations and reduce the likelihood of a review.

Working transparently with us can mutually resolve tax issues prior to lodgment and help avoid tax disputes post-lodgment.

If agreement is reached, and lodgment is received as agreed, we will not conduct a review or audit for that commercial deal, increasing certainty on how tax law applies to your circumstances.

Engage with us early

The earlier you discuss your completed commercial deal with us the better. We can work with you to get the right tax position before you lodge your tax return. By reaching a pre-lodgment agreement, you can avoid potential post-lodgment tax disputes or shortfall penalties and interest.

Once you have completed a deal, we will work together to ascertain the relevant facts to reach an agreement on how the transaction will be reported for tax purposes. We may still contact you post-lodgment to confirm you reported as agreed.

Request a pre-lodgment agreement about your commercial deal by emailing eerequest@ato.gov.au.

For further information on our services, see The right services.

For more information on early engagement, watch our video tutorial on engaging early with the ATO.

Foreign resident capital gains and asset dissipation

We focus on undertaking pre-deal completion and pre-lodgment compliance activities for commercial deals if there is a potential risk of:

• misapplication of the capital gains tax exemption for foreign residents and taxable Australian property (see Division 855 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997)
• dissipation of assets, such as the movement of funds outside Australia (for example, where a foreign resident is selling their sole Australian asset).

These compliance activities are not limited to privately owned and wealthy groups.

In some cases, to mitigate the risk of dissipation of assets, we may seek security for your future tax liabilities. In these cases, we prefer to use a cooperative compliance approach. However, in some high-risk situations where a cooperative compliance approach is unsuccessful, we may issue a special or default assessment, issue a garnishee notice, apply for a freezing order or take other action.

For guidance on our use of garnishee notices and freezing orders, see PS LA 2011/18 Enforcement measures used for the collection and recovery of tax-related liabilities and other amounts.