Question

Sara is a biomedical engineer. She works for Biotronics Engineering (‘Biotronics’), a large engineering company in Melbourne, Australia. Sara receives a salary of $200,000 per year. $1,000 of her salary each month is paid directly to an educational fund for her daughter at her instruction. Under the terms of the fund, Sara is unable to access the money except for the purposes of her daughter’s education.In addition to her salary, Sara is entitled to receive a payment of $500 per month towards the costs of keeping up to date with the latest developments in biomedical engineering. Sara can spend the money on any self-education expenses such as the costs of attending seminars or journal subscriptions, but she must provide Biotronics with receipts of her expenditure to claim the payment. Sara finds that she always spends more than $500 on self-education expenses and always claims the full amount that she is entitled to each month.Sara was involved in a significant scientific breakthrough which improved the health outcomes of some very sick children. The parents of one of those of children was so grateful for Sara’s work that they gave Sara an all-expenses paid holiday to Fiji for two people. The holiday was valued at $30,000 but one of the people to go on the holiday must be Sara. The donor wanted Sara to have a ‘proper’ holiday as she had been working nights and weekends to achieve the breakthrough.Required:(a)Advise Sara as to her assessable income consequences arising out of the above information.(b)Advise Biotronics as to its FBT consequences arising out of the above information, including calculation of the FBT liability (if any). If required, use the gross-up factors and FBT rate for the year ending 31 March 2021.You may assume that any expenses would be deductible for income tax purposes by Sara. You may also assume that any fringe benefits are Type 1 benefits.

Answer 1

A) Sara's taxable income

Income under the head salary = $200000

Development allowance of $500*12= $6000 = Exempt*

Income under Head Salary = $200000

Income under the head other sourse

Gift received from unrelated person = $ 30000

Total Taxable income of Sara = $230000

Note

1 *Development allowance received from the employer is for the official purpose. hence exempt. any amount spent in excess of the allowance received shall not be allowed as deduction to sara.

2. while calculating the income under the head salary No standard deduction has been mentioned as the same is vary from country to country based in their taxation system.

3. Donation of $30000 is received from the parents of the students directly to Sara, as they are not the relatives of the sara hence the amount of donation received shall be treated as Gift, hence taxable under the head income from outher sourse.

B) Advise on the FBT to Biotronics:

development allowance of $6000 during the year provided to Ms Sara is liable for fringe benifit tax. Employer can claim the deduction as expense of $ 6000 but employeer is also liable for the fringe benifit tax which vary from 30% to 50% in different countries.

As regard to the Donation given by the one of the parent to Sara, it is nowever mention that the same is rounted through employer i.e M/s Biotronics. hence, employer is not liable for any FBT on the donation directly given by the parent to Ms Sara.