Sharpcan – High Court of Australia finds that 10-year gaming licences required to maintain existing gaming revenues were purchased on capital account and were not goodwill

Due to a regulatory change, a hotel owner which had been sharing in the revenues generated from 18 gaming machines on its premises was required to bid for 18 assignable gaming machine licences (“GMEs”) in order to be able to continue with the 18 machines, as a result of which it was allocated 18 GMEs that permitted it to operate gaming machines at its premises for 10 years.

In finding that the $600,300 payable in annual instalments to the state government for the allocation of the 18 GMEs was a capital expenditure, the Court stated:

[T]he identification of what (if anything) is to be acquired by an outgoing ultimately requires … a comparison of the expected structure of the business after the outgoing with the expected structure but for the outgoing, not with the structure before the outgoing. Other things being equal, it makes no difference whether the outlay has the effect of expanding the business or simply maintaining it at its present level.

… It was necessary for the Trustee to purchase the GMEs in order to continue to carry on its business as it had done up to that point. But the purchase price was a once-and-for-all payment for the acquisition of an asset of enduring advantage – the 18 GMEs – which once acquired formed part of the profit-earning structure of the Trustee's business. It was incurred on capital account.

Potential relief for the expenditure might instead have been provided under a more specific provision if it had qualified as being made for maintaining “goodwill.” In rejecting this characterization, the Court stated:

[T]he GMEs were assets which could be individually identified and quantified in the accounts of the Trustee's business, which had a value quite apart from any contribution that they may have made to goodwill. That value resided in their capacity to generate gaming income and the fact that they could be sold and transferred to other venue operators, albeit subject to some restrictions and qualifications.

Neal Armstrong. Summaries of Commissioner of Taxation v Sharpcan Pty Ltd [2019] HCA 36 (High Court of Australia) under s. 18(1)(b) – Capital Expenditure v. Expense – Contract Purchases and Concessions and Licences, and s. 13(34)(b).