Cas Silk lives and works in Brisbane as a fitness consultant. She is employed by the French company Puissance Ltd and is paid a monthly salary of $8,000 which is usually deposited into Cas’ bank account in Australia on the first day of each month. Cas commenced her employment with Puissance in January 2017.

In March 2018 Puissance Ltd successfully tendered for the contract to design and instal Olympic standard gym equipment for the Japanese company Fitu Ltd. Cas had always wanted to visit Japan and was excited when Puissance selected her to oversee the installation of the equipment.

Cas travelled to Japan on 1st April 2018 and the installation of the equipment was expected to take a month. Unfortunately, due to poor design, the connections on the gym equipment were not compatible with the Japanese power supply outlets. Cas’ planned one month stay became four months as she worked to finalise the safe installation of the equipment.

In late April 2018 Puissance Ltd instructed Cas to open an account with a bank in Japan. On 1st May, 1st June and 1st July Puissance Ltd deposited Cas’ monthly salary into her Japanese bank account.

While Fitu Ltd was dissatisfied with Puissance Ltd’s performance of the contract it was very impressed by Cas’ professionalism. At the end of July 2018 Fitu presented Cas with two airline tickets and travel vouchers for a holiday in New York, valued at $8,000.

In addition, Fitu offered Cas a consultancy job for 3 years, with a salary of $100,000 per annum and a car. Cas was also offered an amount of $40,000, to be paid in two equal instalments, as an incentive to join Fitu and to compensate for the cost of moving to Japan permanently. The first instalment of the $40,000 would be paid when Cas joined Fitu and the second instalment after one year of service.

Cas accepted the offers by Fitu on 1st September 2018.
 

1. Advise Cas of her Australian tax residency status for the financial years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019.
2. Advise Cas of the tax treatment of the non-monetary benefits she received at the end of July 2018 and the car. (How would these be characterised according to Australian tax law and what implications does this have for Cas?)