The enactment of populist taxes (of varying constitutional validity) that are targeted at aliens, is a contemporary phenomenon in a number of countries. This presentation considers the additional taxation that many Australian jurisdictions have sought to impose on foreign ownership of property, against the backdrop of some of Australia’s international tax obligations. Such foreigner-specific taxes would appear to be incompatible with expansive non-discrimination clauses contained in a number of international tax agreements to which Australia is a party. Interestingly, nationals of polities with agreements that have no applicable non-discrimination clauses — such as Singapore and China — or those of countries with no relevant tax treaty, might (pursuant to Australian constitutional law, notwithstanding the Treasury Laws Amendment (Foreign Investment) Act 2024 (Cth)), also be able to rely on the aforesaid incompatibility for relevant relief. The ramifications of such incompatibility in terms of the potential for non-compliance with Australian domestic human rights legislation, and for potential private law actions for money had and received, will also be canvassed, along with the issues that are raised by the Amendment Act, such as its compatibility with applicable supremacy clauses, questionable retroactivity and likely acquisition of property on other than just terms.
SPEAKER
Mr Eu-Jin Teo
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Business and Economics
The University of Melbourne
Eu-Jin Teo is a prize-winning Senior Lecturer at The University of Melbourne (as well as an Australian Legal Practitioner of over 20 years’ standing), whose interdisciplinary research into the appropriate governance of interactions between legal persons straddles the boundaries of public and private law.
Co-author of Taxation Law in Context (by Oxford University Press) and an updating author of Halsbury’s Laws of Australia, he has been an Editorial Board member of the Melbourne University Law Review, is a former Editor of the Journal of Australian Taxation and is a member of the Law Institute’s Taxation and Revenue Committee, State Taxes Committee, and Administrative Review and Constitutional Law Committee, which he previously chaired.
Eu-Jin’s work has been cited by the High Court of Australia, during proceedings in Parliament, in The Routledge Companion to Financial Accounting Theory, by The Australian Financial Review, and by the late Justice Graham Hill, who was widely regarded as the leading tax judge in Australia before his Honour’s passing.
CHAIR
Dr Vincent Ooi
Assistant Professor of Law
Singapore Management University
DETAILS
Date: 18 February 2025, Tuesday
Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Venue: Meeting Room 5-04, Level 5, Yong Pung How School of Law, SMU
(Bento lunch will be provided)
REGISTRATION
Please click HERE to register. Registration closes on 10 February 2025.
Successful registrant will receive a confirmation email by 13 February 2025 from ccla@smu.edu.sg to confirm your registration.
