Lifting the veil on foreign tax flow-through companies: Could Australian closely held business benefit from their governance regimes?

Abstract

Much of the literature considering whether Australia should follow the international trend of introducing a tax flow-through company has, may be for obvious reasons, focused on the potential tax implications. However, there is more than tax when it comes to considering this international trend as tax flow-through companies are not identical. Particularly, some tax flow-through companies have been in conjunction with the introduction of new business forms. This article will focus on the governance laws of two foreign new form tax flow-through companies: the United States' Limited Liability Company; and the United Kingdom's Limited Liability Partnership to analyse whether their governance regimes could be beneficial to Australian closely held businesses. In isolation from their tax treatment, it will be argued that while such new form tax flow-through companies offer some advantages there are serious concerns about their suitability.