Fair in love but not taxation : the English origins of the Australasian general anti-avoidance rule - Part II

This article is the second in a two-part series on the English origins of the Australasian general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR). The article traces the development of the British provisions considered in Part I, 3. through the drafts and laws of the income tax in Australia and New Zealand and the ultimate emergence of the Australasian GAAR. These developments are traced through four time periods. The first period from the Tasmanian draft income tax of 1866 to the New Zealand property tax of 1879 is the most important because it set the foundations of the GAAR. The second period saw the start of income taxation in the Australasian colonies and thus the jumping of the GAAR from the land and property taxes to the income tax. The third period identified the New South Wales draft law of 1893 as the most direct origin of the wording used in the Australasian GAAR, and that influence found its way to the New Zealand income tax. In the final period, which started with the first consolidation of the New Zealand income tax in 1900, the development of the GAAR can be traced through the adoption in the Australian income tax of 1915 and its subsequent consolidation.