Treasury Laws Amendment (Combating Illegal Phoenixing) Bill 2019

The majority voted against amendments, which means they failed. According to Whitlam MP Stephen Jones (Labor), who introduced the amendments, they reflect a former version of the bill, which the Liberal and National Parties supported earlier this year but have now been removed. He said that:

We believe that [these amendments are] worthy of support of every individual member of this place because, without director identification numbers, the dodgy directors will continue to rip off unwitting contractors, unwitting customers. They'll continue to rip people off to the tune of billions of dollars every year.

What does this bill do?

The bill was introduced in order to:

• introduce new phoenixing offences
• prohibit directors from improperly backdating resignations or ceasing to be director when this could leave a company with no director and
• allow the Commissioner of Taxation (the Commissioner) to collect estimates of anticipated goods and services tax (GST) liabilities and make company directors personally liable for their company's GST liabilities in certain circumstances.

The ATO defines Illegal phoenix activity as when:

a new company is created to continue the business of a company that has been deliberately liquidated to avoid paying its debts, including taxes, creditors and employee entitlements.