The Australian Taxation Office issued an Interpretative Decision ATO ID 2008/5 which states that the controlled foreign corporation (CFC) provisions will not attribute any income to a resident which does not have any direct or indirect interests in a CFC, even though the resident exercises de-facto control over the CFC.
By way of background, a foreign company is a CFC if, inter alia, the company is controlled by five or fewer Australian entities. This test does not requi…