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Tax Laws Amendment (Special Conditions for Not-for-profit Concessions) Bill 2012

Introduced into the House of Representatives on 23 October 2012
Portfolio: Treasury
Response received: 22 October 2012

Committee view

1.2        The committee wrote to the Treasurer seeking further information with regard to a reverse burden offence in new section 353-30 to assist the committee to form a view on its compatibility with the presumption of innocence in article 14(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In particular, the committee asked for information on the following matters:

a) the level of risk that the provision may allow a person to be convicted of the offence despite reasonable doubt as to their guilt and why is that risk considered justifiable;

b) the justification for the application of a reversed burden offence in this bill, noting that similar conduct is the subject of a full fault offence in the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill (ss 180-10(2)); and

c) if a full-fault offence is not considered appropriate in these circumstances, whether an evidential burden may offer a less restrictive alternative for achieving the provision’s purpose?  

1.3        The committee thanks the Assistant Treasurer for his response but notes that the response does not address issues (b) and (c).

1.4        The committee requests for this information again from the Assistant Treasurer to enable it to assess the compatibility of this offence provision.   

Purpose of the bill

1.5        This bill:

• changes the ‘in Australia’ requirements for income tax exempt entities and deductible gift recipients to ensure that they must generally operate principally or solely in Australia (subject to some exceptions);
• standardises various other requirements that entities must meet to be tax exempt; and
• harmonises the meaning of ‘not-for-profit’ across various Acts.

1.6        The Assistant Treasurer's response can be found in Appendix 1.

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