Private ruling: International income
Date of advice: 2 February 2021
Published: March 2021
Ruling period: Year ending 30 June 2020
Date scheme commenced: 1 July 2018

Ruling: Q1: Are you a resident of Australia for income tax purposes? | A1: No | Q2: Is my employment income from my Australian employer assessable in Australia? | A2: Yes | Q3: Should my Australian employer deduct PAYG withholdings from my income? | A3: Yes

Relevant facts and circumstances: You are a Country A citizen who is also an Australian permanent resident. In the 2019 and 2020 financial years you have been living in Country A and are a tax resident of that country. Your intention upon arrival in Australia was to live in Country A permanently. You never had an intention of residing permanently in Australia, even though you applied for, and were granted, permanent residency. Your current situation is that you reside in Country A and have no plans to reside in Australian in the foreseeable future. You accepted a position with an Australian company, Company A in mid-2019 as a purchasing officer. This position is based in Country A. In this role you evaluate vendors, negotiate purchasing contracts, prepare relevant documents and deal with other product purchasing matters of the company. Your employer currently withholds PAYG from your wages. The contract of employment you signed was drafted in Australian and then emailed to you. You signed the contract and returned it to your Australian employer via email. Your employer printed the contract and then signed it in Australia to make it a valid contract. The contract is written to operate under Australian employment laws. Your pay is paid to an Australian bank account by your Australian employer. All suppliers, customers or clients you deal with are based in Country A. You have no need to meet with them in Australia in any way as all of your work is performed in Country A. You have only travelled to Australia for relatively brief visits, staying for a few weeks per year. When you travelled to Australia you were normally accompanied by your spouse as your children are now independent adults. You visited Australia mainly for holidays. When in Australia you stay with your child. You did not inform the Australian Electoral Commission or Medicare that you were departing Australia. You have never registered with the Australian Electoral Commission as an Australian voter. Upon departure you cancelled your private health insurance policy. You lodge Australian taxation returns as a non-resident. You currently live in your home which you own in Country A. You live there with your spouse. You also own a motor vehicle, household effects and a local bank account. Your only Australian asset is an Australian bank account which is used to receive your salary payments and to provide spending money when in Australia. You did not have household effects or personal effects in Australian as these are held in your home in Country A. You have not established professional, social or sporting connections in Australia, but you are a member of two professional associations in Country A. Neither you nor your spouse has ever been employed by the Australian Commonwealth government and neither belongs to any Commonwealth superannuation scheme such as CSS or PSS.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 995-1(1) | Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 Subsection 6(1) | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 6-5 | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Subsection 6-15

Reasons for decision: Summary: Section 6-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) provides that where you are a resident of Australia for taxation purposes, your assessable income includes income gained from all sources, whether in or out of Australia. However, where you are a foreign resident, your assessable income includes only income derived from an Australian source. The terms 'resident' and 'resident of Australia', regarding an individual, are defined in subsection 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA 1936). The definition provides four tests to ascertain whether a taxpayer is a resident of Australia for income tax purposes. These tests are: • the resides test, • the domicile test, • the 183-day test, and • the superannuation test. The primary test for deciding the residency status of an individual is whether the individual resides in Australia according to the ordinary meaning of the word resides. However, where an individual does not reside in Australia according to ordinary concepts, they may still be a resident of Australia for tax purposes if they meet the conditions of one of the other three tests. Resides Test When considering the resides test the following factors are normally considered: • physical presence • intention or purpose • family or business ties • maintenance and location of assets • social and living arrangements In your case, you are a citizen of Country A who is also an Australian permanent resident. You have returned to Country A where you are employed by an Australian company, which is based in Australia. You live and work in Country A. This subject is addressed in Taxation Ruling 98/17 (TR98/17 ) Income tax: residency status of individuals entering Australia. At paragraphs 20 and 21 it states - 20. All the facts and circumstances that describe an individual's behaviour in Australia are relevant. In particular, the following factors are useful in describing the quality and character of an individual's behaviour: • intention or purpose of presence; • family and business/employment ties; • maintenance and location of assets; and • social and living arrangements. 21. No single factor is necessarily decisive and many are interrelated. The weight given to each factor varies depending on individual circumstances. Your intention upon arrival in Australia was to live in Country A permanently. You never had an intention of residing permanently in Australia, even though you applied for, and were granted, permanent residency. Your current situation is that you reside in Country A and have no plans to reside in Australian in the foreseeable future. You have maintained strong family ties with Country A and nurtured these ties by residing in that country, joining professional associations, living with your family in Country A and maintaining most of your personal effects and assets in that country. You are not considered a resident for tax purposes under the resides test as you maintain an enduring association with Country A. You have an abode, your family home, in Country A which remains available to you and you have not established another abode in Australia. All of your connections are with Country A and you have no intention of residing in Australia. | Detailed Reasoning - The domicile test: Under the domicile test, a person is a resident of Australia if their domicile is in Australia unless the Commissioner is satisfied they have a permanent place of abode outside of Australia. | Detailed Reasoning - Domicile: "Domicile" is a legal concept to be determined according to the Domicile Act 1982 and common law rules. A person's domicile is in their country of origin unless they acquire a different domicile of choice or operation of law. To obtain a different domicile of choice, a person must have the intention to make their home indefinitely in another country, usually done by obtaining a migration visa. The domicile of choice which a person has at any time continues until that person acquires a different domicile of choice. In your case, you are a citizen of Country A. You have travelled to Australia but have now departed and you have not established a domicile in Australia. You have not abandoned your domicile in Country A and acquired a domicile of choice in Australia even though you have the right to reside permanently in Australia. You have not yet established, nor do you intend to establish, a domicile in Australia. You are not a resident under this test. | Detailed Reasoning - The 183 days test: Where a person is present in Australia for 183 days during the year of income the person will be a resident, unless the Commissioner is satisfied that the person's usual place of abode is outside Australia and the person does not intend to take up residence in Australia. You are not a resident for tax purposes under this test. | Detailed Reasoning - The superannuation test: An individual is still considered to be a resident if that person is eligible to contribute to the Public Sector Superannuation Scheme (PSS) or the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme (CSS), or that person is the spouse or child under 16 of such a person. You are not a contributing member of the PSS or the CSS or a spouse of such a person, or a child under 16 of such a person. You are not a resident for tax purposes under this test. | Detailed Reasoning - Residency status: As you satisfy none of the four tests of residency outlined in subsection 6(1) of the ITAA 1936, you are not a resident of Australia for income tax purposes after departing Australia on late-2019. | Detailed Reasoning - Assessable in Australia: The relevant parts of section 6-5 of the ITAA 1997 state: (1) Your assessable income includes income according to ordinary concepts, which is called ordinary income. ... (3) If you are a foreign resident, your assessable income includes: (a) the * ordinary income you * derived directly or indirectly from all * Australian sources during the income year; and (b) other * ordinary income that a provision includes in your assessable income for the income year on some basis other than having an * Australian source. Subsection 6-15(1) further states: If an amount is not ordinary income, and is not statutory income, it is not assessable income (so you do not have to pay tax on it). Since the 20XX income year you have been employed by an Australian company, Company A. The salary you received in return for performing your duties as a Purchasing Officer are salary and wages and therefore ordinary income (as per Mutual Acceptance Company Ltd v FCT (1944) 69 CLR 389; Murdoch v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) (1980) 143 CLR 629). You have undertaken the work and subsequently been paid for it by your Australia employer. Therefore, you have derived that salary. If you are a foreign resident, the salary received is assessable income if it was sourced in Australia. It is not assessable income if it was sourced outside of Australia as per subsection 6-15(1) as it would not be ordinary income to which subsection 6-5 of the ITAA 1997 applies and there is no statutory provision which would make it assessable. In Nathan v. Federal Commissioner of Taxation 25 CLR 183 at 189-190 it was recognised that the ascertainment of the actual source of a given income is a practical, hard matter of fact. As stated by Bowen J in Federal Commissioner of Taxation v. Efstathakis (1979) 9 ATR 867; 79 ATC 4256 (the Efstathakis Case) at ATR 870; ATC 4259, to determine source: ... the answer is not to be found in the cases, but the weighing of the relative importance of the various factors which the cases have shown to be relevant. Commissioner of Taxation v Cam & Sons Ltd (1936) 36 SR (NSW) 544 (the Cam Case) concerned wages paid to seamen employed to work on trawlers. They were engaged and paid in New South Wales, but most of their services were provided outside state territorial waters. Jordan CJ, with whom Street and Bavin JJ agreed in the Cam Case at 548, held that: Where income is derived from wages or salary, again the source has several factors. Personal exertion may be involved in negotiating and obtaining the contract of employment, in performing the stipulated services, and obtaining payment for them. ... [i]n the ordinary case of the employment of a seaman ... where there is nothing special, either in the circumstances of the contract of employment or in the payment, and where the work is both done and paid for in the ordinary course, the all-important factor is the doing of the work; and the contract of employment and the payment are relatively insignificant and formal elements. But this is not necessarily the case with respect to all wages or salary. In the case of an appointment to a sinecure, the engagement and the payment may be the only significant factors. Accordingly, the wages had to be apportioned based on 'working time in and out of New South Wales territorial waters (see the Cam Case at 553). In Federal Commissioner of Taxation v French (1957) 98 CLR 398 (the French Case) the taxpayer was employed as an engineer by the Australian company CSR which carried on business in New South Wales and, relevantly, New Zealand. Each year, the taxpayer spent two or three weeks in New Zealand as inspecting engineer for the company in its New Zealand business. At all other times, the taxpayer performed services for the company in New South Wales. A majority of the High Court held that the wages paid in respect of the period in New Zealand were sourced in New Zealand, because this is where the services were performed, this being the most important factor in Mr French's situation (see French Case at 411, 417 and 422). However, the Court also made comments to the effect that this decision did not necessarily determine what would be most important in every personal services contract. For example Dixon CJ in the French Case at 405 in relation to a director and at 406 in relation to an accountant procured to achieve a specified result, and Kitto J at 417-418 refers to a situation where remuneration was payable regardless of service, and to a person who worked sometimes overseas who was paid while on sick leave, and to where a period of overseas service might in substance be merely incidental to Australian service. In Commissioner of Taxation of the Commonwealth of Australia v Mitchum (1965) 113 CLR 401, (the Mitchum Case) the taxpayer was an actor. He entered into a contract with a Swiss company, under which he agreed to provide services as a consultant to the producer and to act in two motion picture photoplays at such places as the company might from time to time designate. The agreement contained a number of provisions by which the taxpayer agreed to restrict his activities. If the Swiss company failed to utilise his services, provided that he performed all applicable terms of the agreement, he would be paid a salary. The taxpayer came to Australia for a period of time to act in a photoplay, and the issue was the source of the salary paid in respect of this time period. The High Court stated, at 408-409, that: Taylor J., as I read his reasons, was engaged in deciding a question of fact deriving what assistance he could from the decided cases. He said, speaking, of course, of a case of wages or salary for work done or services performed - "... if, as the statute requires, I am compelled to select as the source of an employee's remuneration either the locus of the contract of service, or, the place where the remuneration is payable thereunder, or, the place where the services are performed which give rise to the right of remuneration I am content to conclude that, in the absence of special circumstances, this third element should be chosen" (1957) 98 CLR, at p 422. In so saying, his Honour was not, in my opinion, laying down a rule of law: he was expressing his reasons for the conclusion of fact to which he had come. I do not feel compelled or persuaded by the decision of the Court in French's Case (1957) 98 CLR 398 to hold that in every case where work forms the consideration for wages or salary paid, the source of the income constituted by the wages or salary is in the place where the work is done. ... It is sufficient for present purposes to say that neither French's Case (1957) 98 CLR 398 nor any other of which I am aware lays it down that for the purposes of the Act the source of wages, salary or remuneration for services performed is necessarily, in default of special circumstances, in the place where the work is done or the services performed. In the Efstathakis Case the taxpayer was a Greek National resident in Australia who was employed by the Greek Government as a secretary/typist in the Greek embassy. She had applied for the job in Greece, and the post had been gazetted there. She performed the services in Australia. Her net pay was compiled in Greece, a cheque was drawn on a bank in Greece and then received in Australia. A condition of her employment was that she could be posted anywhere in the world, but she would probably have resigned, as she had put down roots in Sydney, having child there, buying a unit, and marrying a naturalised Greek Australian. Bowen CJ, with whom Brennan and Deane JJ agreed, held that the wages paid to the taxpayer had an Australian source. His Honour considered the above factors, but gave most weight to 'the residence of the taxpayer in Australia and the facts that the services were performed and payment received [in Australia] ... The payment of remuneration depended upon actual performance of the services (the Efstatakis Case at ATR 871; ATC at 4260). As per the court cases source cases concerning the provision of personal services are decided by weighing up the outcomes of the considerations of the following three factors (with the weighting given to each determined by their relevance to the case): - the place where the contract of employment is entered into, - the place where remuneration is payable, and - the place where the services are performed. Your contract of employment was formulated, prepared and is governed by, the laws that apply in Australia. Therefore, this factor significantly leans towards the source of your income being Australian. While the fact that you are located in Country A when you signed the contract is also relevant, it does not change this outcome as the contract only came into effect when it was signed by your employer, in Australia. Your remuneration is paid by the Australian employer which is located in Australia into a bank account located in Australia in Australian dollars. Therefore, this factor leans towards the source of the taxpayer's income being Australian. In the Cam, the French and the Efstathakis Cases it was held that the source of the income was where the taxpayer performed the services. However, in those cases the place where the taxpayer was located was the same as where the taxpayer did the work, where it was given effect to and where the outcome of the work occurred: - the Cam Case - the fishermen undertook fishing activities putting nets into the water and fished obtaining fish from the sea which all occurred where the boat on which he was working on at the time was located, - the French Case - the professional services the taxpayer provided in undertaking inspections were in relation to things he inspected in the locations that he was in at the time he conducted his inspections and which he subsequently reported on, and - the Efstathakis Case - the taxpayer undertook secretarial duties and typing work. The effect of those secretarial, her typed work and the outcome of the other work always occurred at the same location as she was in at that time. Your situation is distinguished from these cases in one material aspect - the fact that your physical location in Country A. On physical location of the taxpayer alone this factor would lean towards the source of the work being in Country A. However, the physical location of the taxpayer is not sufficient, the other factors concerning the performance of the services are also relevant. Once this is done then this factor would also lean towards the income being sourced in Australia. While you provide purchasing decisions for your Australian employer, you ultimately work for an Australian company and are paid through an Australian payroll provider into an Australian bank account. The work you do is ultimately to serve the interests of an Australian corporate entity. On balance, the factors suggesting an Australian source of income are more persuasive than other factors as shown by the many links back to Australia and the ultimate benefit to an Australian entity. In totality the factors weighted together show a stronger Australian connection than with other countries. Therefore, taking into account the both the overall outcome and consideration of the factors the income that you earn is regarded as being sourced in Australia. Accordingly, this income is assessable in Australia. It follows that PAYG deductions should continue to be deducted by your employer.