Income tax: capital gains: is a court an entity for the purposes of Event Number D1 (about an entity creating contractual or other rights in you) in subsection 109-5(2) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997?

No.

The term 'entity' is defined in section 960-100 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to mean an individual, a body corporate, a body politic, a partnership, any other unincorporated association or body of persons, a trust or a superannuation fund.

A court is not a body corporate, a body politic, or an individual (see Kizon v. Palmer (1997) 142 ALR 488 at 505). So, a court is not an 'entity' as that term is used in the acquisition rules in subsection 109-5(2), Event Number D1.

The importance of this issue is for the application of the general acquisition rules in Division 109 in Part 3-1. If a court were an entity it could create rights in another entity and that entity would acquire the rights in accordance with subsection 109-5(2), Event Number D1.