Private ruling: Employment termination payment - genuine redundancy
Published: April 2014
Ruling period: Year ending 30 June 2013.
Date scheme commenced: 1 July 2013.

Ruling: Q1: 1. Is any part of the payment received an employment termination payment? 2. Is any part of the payment received the tax free part of a genuine redundancy payment? | A1: 1. No. 2. No.

Relevant facts and circumstances: Up until towards the end of the relevant income year, you were an 'aggregate employee' for your employer. That is, you held two separate, part-time positions within the same organisation, namely: • Position A; and • Position B. The features of aggregate employment with your employer are: • One engagement with your employer but performing two discrete roles under two separate position numbers; • Employed performing the same job; • Employed under the same award, classification level and pay point; • Employed under the same employment status, eg, part-time; • In receipt of the same annual leave loading and/or accrual rates; and • Total hours of engagement do not exceed the equivalent of one full-time equivalent role. During the relevant income year, expressions of interest letters were distributed for voluntary redundancies. You applied for a voluntary redundancy for one of your two positions within the organisation, that being Position A. Several months later an offer of voluntary redundancy was made to you. However, the offer was made for both positions instead of the one you had requested. After you notified the employer of the issue, you received a letter confirming that the offer you received was incorrectly inclusive of both positions. The letter stated that in order for an estimate to be generated that was based solely on one position, the current offer of voluntary redundancy would be withdrawn. Further, the letter stated that once a new estimate was completed a new offer would be reissued. Some months later, you were advised that Position A has been abolished. You were given the option to accept a voluntary redundancy package or pursue transfer opportunities. Together with this letter was advice from the employer stating that as you were an aggregate employee and only one of your positions was being made redundant, you are not ceasing employment with your employer entirely. As such, the termination payment was to be taxed at the marginal rates. You accepted the redundancy offer and signed the document titled 'voluntary redundancy - estimate of entitlements' and the notice of separation several days later. Confusion arose with regards to the correct PAYG withholding tax as the employment separation certificate indicates a tax-free redundancy payment whereas the PAYG payment summary for the relevant income year includes the severance payment in gross payments.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 82-135. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 82-10. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 82-130. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 82-130(1). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subparagraph 82-130(1)(a)(i). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subparagraph 82-130(1)(b). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subparagraph 82-130(1)(c). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 82-135. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Paragraph 82-135(e). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 83-170. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 83-175. | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 83-175(1). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 83-175(2). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 83-175(3). | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 83-175(4).

Reasons for decision: Summary: No part of the severance payment made to you by your employer is an employment termination payment or a genuine redundancy payment. This is because your employment has not been terminated as you have retained one of your part time positions with your employer. Therefore, the payment has been correctly included in your PAYG payment summary for the relevant income in gross payments. | Detailed Reasoning - Employment termination payment: Section 995-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) states that: employment termination payment has the meaning given by section 82-130 of the ITAA 1997. Subsection 82-130(1) of the ITAA 1997 states that: A payment is an employment termination payment if: (a) it is received by you: (i) in consequence of the termination of your employment; or (ii) after another person's death, in consequence of the termination of the other person's employment; and (b) it is received no later than 12 months after that termination (but see subsection (4)); and (c) it is not a payment mentioned in section 82-135. Section 82-135 of the ITAA 1997 provides that certain payments are not employment termination payments, including: • a payment for unused annual leave or unused long service leave; • the tax-free part of a genuine redundancy payment or an early retirement scheme payment. To determine if a payment constitutes an employment termination payment, all the conditions in section 82-130 of the ITAA 1997 must be satisfied. Failure to satisfy any of the conditions under subsection 82-130(1) of the ITAA 1997 will result in the payment not being considered an employment termination payment. Furthermore, any termination payments received outside of the 12 months will be taxed as ordinary income at marginal tax rates, unless the taxpayer is covered by a determination exempting them from the 12 month rule. | Detailed Reasoning - Paid as a consequence of the termination of your employment: For a payment to be treated as an employment termination payment, the first condition that needs to be met is that there must be a payment that is made in consequence of the termination of employment of the taxpayer (see subparagraph 82-130(1)(a)(i) of the ITAA 1997). In this case, the severance payment was made in consequence of the abolishment of Position A. However, given a key fact of this case is that you retained one part-time employment position with your employer at the same time as your other part-time position was abolished, the critical issue for determining if the severance payment is an employment termination payment is whether or not the your employment was terminated in accordance with section 82-130 of the ITAA 1997. We do not consider the facts of your case to be sufficiently different for Taxation Ruling TR 2009/2 to not apply. Our view that the severance payment is not an employment termination payment is consistent with the view set out in TR 2009/2. Our view is also consistent with the overarching legislative scheme of Part 2-40 of Chapter 2 of the ITAA 1997 that seeks to deal cohesively with all payments made in consequence of the termination of a person's common law employment. This legislative scheme means that while TR 2009/2 is concerned with genuine redundancy payments, the views expressed in the Ruling with respect to the concept of 'termination of employment' apply equally in the context of employment termination payments. In this regard, paragraph 235 of TR 2009/2 states: It is the Commissioner's view that a payment must be in consequence of termination … before any part of that payment can be treated as a genuine redundancy payment. Paragraph 240 of TR 2009/2 further provides: … As it may transpire that part of a genuine redundancy payment is an ETP [employment termination payment], the whole of the redundancy payment must have been in consequence of termination. [bracketed term included] Broadly speaking, treatment as an employment termination payment is the default for payments made in consequence of the termination of employment under Part 2-40 of Chapter 2 of the ITAA 1997. Although separately defined from an employment termination payment, the Commissioner's view expressed at paragraph 232 of TR 2009/2 is that a genuine redundancy payment is an employment termination payment unless and to the extent that it is tax-free. That is, a genuine redundancy payment is a special type of eligible termination payment with the requisite purpose and features. This view is consistent with the note to section 83-170. As paragraph 16 (and paragraph 241) of TR 2009/2 provides, the loss of a particular position with an employer is not a dismissal (a particular type of termination of employment) for the purposes of subsection 83-175(1) of the ITAA 1997 unless all employment with the employer is severed. The only exception to this is the case of a dual capacity employee who holds an office with the employer at the same time as having a common law employment relationship. This exception arises because of the operation of section 80-5 as explained in TR 2009/2. This exception does not apply if the person is employed only in the capacity of a common law employee. Examples 13 and 14 of TR 2009/2 are synonymous with the facts of this case and illustrate that the loss of a particular position with an employer is not a dismissal or termination unless all employment with the employer is terminated: | Detailed Reasoning - Example 13 - Business acquisition leading to redundancy, constructive dismissal: 161. Dave Dolphin works as the Sales Manager for the Big Fish Company (Big Fish) which sells swimwear. 162. Big Fish acquires Plankton Pty Ltd (Plankton), a company that sells leisure clothing. As part of the acquisition, Big Fish employs Plankton's Sales Manager, Marion Minky. Marion assumes the role of Sales Manager in respect of all of Big Fish's expanded operations. Dave is offered a role as a swimwear sales representative for a particular district. This offer involves a considerable pay cut. As Dave sees his experience is better suited to the management of a team of salespeople rather than in front line sales, he decides to resign. 163. While Dave may have the skills to do the job he is offered, the job has significantly different duties and functions to that he performed previously. Accordingly, the synergies created by the acquisition of Plankton make Dave's former position redundant. 164. Therefore, a termination payment received by Dave in these circumstances may be characterised as a genuine redundancy payment on the basis that Dave was constructively dismissed due to redundancy. | Detailed Reasoning - Example 14 - Business acquisition, acceptance of demotion: 165. Assume the same facts as Example 13, except Dave chooses to accept the swimwear sales representative position together with a lump sum payment to compensate him for the loss of his Sales Manager position. 166. In these circumstances, Dave's employment with Big Fish is not terminated. Therefore, the lump sum payment cannot be characterised as a genuine redundancy payment. Unless all employment with the employer is terminated there cannot be an employment termination payment. | Detailed Reasoning - Genuine redundancy payment: A payment made to an employee is a genuine redundancy payment if it satisfies all criteria set out in section 83-175 of the ITAA 1997. This section states: (1) A genuine redundancy payment is so much of a payment received by an employee who is dismissed from employment because the employees position is genuinely redundant as exceeds the amount that could reasonably be expected to be received by the employee in consequence of the voluntary termination of his or her employment at the time of dismissal. (2) A genuine redundancy payment must satisfy the following conditions: (a) the employee is dismissed before the earlier of the following: (i) the day he or she turned 65; (ii) if the employees employment would have terminated when he or she reached a particular age or completed a particular period of service the day he or she would reach the age or complete the period of service (as the case may be); (b) if the dismissal was not at arm's length the payment does not exceed the amount that could reasonably be expected to be made if the dismissal were at arm's length; (c) at the time of the dismissal, there was no arrangement between the employee and the employer, or between the employer and another person, to employ the employee after dismissal. (3) However, a genuine redundancy payment does not include any part of a payment that was received by the employee in lieu of superannuation benefits to which the employee may have become entitled at the time the payment was received or at a later time. Payments not covered (4) A payment is not a genuine redundancy payment if it is a payment mentioned in section 82-135 (apart from paragraph 82-135(e)). Section 82-135 of the ITAA 1997 lists payments that are not employment termination payments. Paragraph 82-135(e) provides that the part of a genuine redundancy payment worked out under section 83-170 is not an employment termination payment. | Detailed Reasoning - Dismissal and redundancy: A genuine redundancy payment is defined under subsection 83-175(1) of the ITAA 1997 as a payment resulting from both: (a) a dismissal; and (b) a genuine redundancy. The terms 'dismissal' and 'redundancy' are not defined in the ITAA 1997. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the ordinary meaning of the terms and the meaning the courts have ascribed to each word. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Income Tax Assessment Amendment Act (No.3) 1984 , which inserted former section 27F of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA 1936), the predecessor to section 83-175 of the ITAA 1997, states at page 91: The terms "dismissal" and "redundancy" are not defined in the legislation and, therefore, should be given their ordinary meanings. "Dismissal" carries with it the concept of the involuntary (on the taxpayer's part) termination of employment . "Redundancy" carries the concept that the requirements of the employer for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, or for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where they were so employed, have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish. Redundancy, however, would not extend to the dismissal of an employee for personal or disciplinary reasons or for reasons that the employee was inefficient. [bold emphasis added] As noted above, the Commissioner has issued TR 2009/2 which provides guidance on the factors to be considered in the interpretation of section 83-175 of the ITAA 1997. Paragraph 11 of TR 2009/2 states: There are four components within the basis genuine redundancy requirement: • The payment must be received in consequence of a termination. • The termination must involve an employee being dismissed from employment. • The dismissal must be caused by the redundancy of the employee's position. • The redundancy payment must be made genuinely because of a redundancy. | Detailed Reasoning - The payment is in consequence of the termination of employment: As noted previously, it has been determined that the severance payment was not received in consequence of the termination of your employment. Therefore, the requirement in subsection 83-175(1) of the ITAA 1997 that the payment is in consequence of your termination of employment has not be satisfied. Accordingly, the severance payment cannot be classified as a genuine redundancy payment. | Detailed Reasoning - Conclusion: It is considered that no part of the severance payment constitutes an employment termination payment or a genuine redundancy payment within the meaning of the ITAA 1997. Therefore, the total payment is to be included in your assessable income as gross payments for the relevant income year.