A ‘top hatting’ transaction - AusNet Federal Court decision handed down

This decision considers a technical tax issue to a ‘top hatting’ transaction where the taxpayer sought to argue the tax rules apply in a particular way in order to obtain a substantially favourable tax outcome, as outlined by Luke Imbriano, James Macky, Matt Ervin and Nathan Unitt.

The Federal Court (Justice Hespe), on 16 February 2024, handed down the decision in AusNet Services Limited v Commissioner of Taxation [2024] FCA 90 (the AusNet Decision). The AusNet Decision considered which tax roll-over was relevant to the restructure of the AusNet tripled stapled security which occurred on 18 June 2015 and resulted in the stapled structure becoming consolidated under a single holding entity. This type of restructure is colloquially referred to as ‘top hatting’. More sp...

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Authors: Luke Imbriano, James Macky,

Published Date: 20 February 2024