Anecdotally one hears that many partners of business partnerships, especially husband and wife partnerships, don’t bother with a deed or agreement to record their partnership. These partnerships run some risk that the Commissioner of Taxation won’t accept that a partnership exists and then the onus of proof will be on the “partners” to show that the Commissioner is wrong and that the partnership between them is real.

Demonstrating the partnership

The burden of proof (see our blog post at https://wp.me/p6T4vg-W ) then moves on to the taxpayers asserting their partnership to prove their contribution and involvement in a partnership and their conduct of a business as a partnership. If the supposed partners don’t meet this onus on them, the partnership fails for tax.

The Commissioner usually won’t dismiss a business partnership asserted in a partnership income tax return without a reason for doing so. But lack of a written partnership agreement can be a major driver in cases where the Commissioner does do that.

Income tax effective features of a partnerships accepted for tax

A partner in a tax partnership can broadly offset a loss from the partnership against non-partnership income of the partner for income tax though that capability is now constrained by the non-commercial loss rules in Division 35 of the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997 which apply to both individuals and partnerships.

The ability of partners to share income and losses from a partnership unevenly is both a commercially useful flexibility and a tax effective feature of a partnership.

Uneven shares of tax partnership income and losses

Section 92 of the ITAA 1936 brings to tax a partner’s share of their “individual interest” in the net income of the partnership in an income year. If the agreed split of partnership income and losses between two partners of a partnership is say 75%/25% by agreement between the partners then this can be thus accepted for tax, all else being in order.

In order?

State and Territory partnership legislation provides that:

all partners share equally in the capital and profits of the business, and must contribute equally towards the losses, whether of capital or otherwise, sustained by the partnership

from paragraph 24 of Taxation Ruling TR 2005/7 [footnoting Section 24(I) of the Partnership Act 1892 (NSW); section 28(1) of the Partnership Act 1958 (Vic); section 27(1) of the Partnership Act 1891 (Qld); section 24(I) of the Partnership Act 1891 (SA); section 34(1) of the Partnership Act 1895 (WA); section 29(a) of the Partnership Act 1891 (Tas); section 29(1) of the Partnership Act 1963 (ACT) ]

To achieve an unequal split of income or losses between the partners, the partners must produce an agreement contracting out of this statutory prescribed equal share which applies effectively by default. An obvious instance where this is necessary is when partners have made unequal capital contributions to the partnership and seek to adjust quantum rights to:

• partnership income and losses; and
• returns of partnership capital;

accordingly.

Where partners pursuing unequal partnership income/loss entitlements seek:

• to prove those entitlements to the Commissioner; or
• to avoid disagreement and dispute with other partners about their share of partnership income or losses;

a written form of the deal setting out the terms of the partnership is essential.

Partner salary

Taxation Ruling TR 2005/7 concerns the taxation implications of ‘partnership salary’. The ruling explains:

 A ‘partnership salary’ is not truly a salary, nor is it an expense of the partnership, but instead is a distribution of partnership profits to the recipient partner. Thus, the payment of a ‘partnership salary’ to a partner, whether or not for personal services provided by the partner, is not taken into account as an allowable deduction under section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997…

Paragraph 7 of TR 2005/7

At paragraph 10 of TR 2005/7 the Commissioner further states that, to be effective for tax purposes, an agreement to pay a partnership salary must be entered into before the end of the income year in which a claimed partnership salary is drawn.

TR 2005/7 has a number of useful examples of how accounting for a partnership salary can be done in a way that will be acceptable for tax by the Commissioner.

Fights with other partners over entitlements

A partner in receipt of a partnership salary for personal services should thus be mindful that a partnership deed may or will be vital to showing he or she received a partnership salary, as agreed, for those services in fact and that amounts received by the partners were additional, as salary, to and not an advance or drawings of the partner’s statutory equal share of income.

Other problems with partnerships that are not in order for tax

Not partnership salary issues and so not addressed in TR 2005/7 are:

• where the Commissioner may adjust partnership income of a partner where a partner does not have real or effective control of or of disposal of partnership income using the uncontrolled partnership income provision in section 94 of the ITAA 1936; and
• where the Commissioner asserts a partnership is a sham: that is, the partnership is without legal effect despite documentation, such as an purported agreement, of it.

Conclusions

It is an imperative that partnerships where a partner or partners:

• are to receive a partnership salary; or
• are to participate unequally in income and losses with the other partners for any other reason, including due to disparity in contributions of capital to the partnership of to facilitate partnership salaries;

document the terms of the partnership. A partnership deed or agreement is usually inexpensive and a small price to protect against the above calamities. It is especially important to complete a deed or agreement where there is possibility of dispute between partners as to what their shares of partnership income and losses are to be.

A partnership deed also shows the Commissioner that the partnership is most likely a real structure carrying on a business and that the shares of income and losses partners say they share in and take from the partnership matches what the partners believe them to be and will so return in their partnership income tax returns.