Greater Melbourne Area
I am a Professor of Practice lecturing in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taxation at Latrobe University’s Business School. In the capacity I assist in the design and delivery of the taxation syllabus including the preparation of interactive blended learning modules as well as traditional face to face teaching. I also Co-Chair the 2016 Future of the Tax Profession Working Group established by the Australian Taxation Office to oversee the implementation of its new practitioner lodgment system comprising senior representatives from the Big 4 accounting firms, professional accounting and tax associations, software house and ATO senior management as well is a broad range of practitioners. I’m also a member of the ATO’s Tax Practitioner Stewardship Group which meets to collaboratively address systemic issues impacting the tax profession including the future design of the administration of the tax and superannuation systems. I also run my own independent boutique tax consultancy practice Morris and Associates which services a wider array of small to medium sized enterprises on a broad range of tax issues including, amongst others, salary packaging and employment taxes, business structuring including mergers and acquisitions, succession planning and estate taxation.
As Senior Tax Counsel I, Represented CPA Australia on various peak ATO consultative forums including the National Tax Liaison Group which address a wide range of technical, administrative and strategic issues impacting direct and indirect taxes; Consulted with Treasury on the design of new Commonwealth taxation laws including the lodgment of submissions on exposure draft legislation; Lodged submissions with the ATO, Treasury and other stakeholders on all key tax developments; Disseminated tax advocacy initiatives via press releases, seminar papers, discussion group presentations, website products, podcasts and articles in CPA Australia’s ‘In the Black’ magazine
As a Tax Training Specialist, I: Prepared seminar papers on a various topics including transfer pricing, trust losses, debt forgiveness, the GST treatment of property transactions, the GST going concern exemption, personal services income, the taxation of trusts, interest deductibility, year-end tax planning, fringe benefits tax and the management of GST audits; Facilitated workshops on the capital allowance regime, the CGT small business concessions, the small business entity tax concessions, the trading stock provisions, the employee share scheme provisions and the debt equity law; and Prepared and presented training sessions for corporate clients on consolidations, demergers, thin capitalisation, the foreign source income rules, tax due diligence issues and the taxation of financial arrangements.