Share trader was not carrying on a business, losses non-deductible

On 26 August 2013, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled in Hartley and Commissioner of Taxation ([2013] AATA 601) that the Taxpayer was not conducting a share trading business and therefore losses made from the share trading were not deductible and instead were capital losses.

During the 2009-2011 years, the Taxpayer made significant losses from his share trading and claimed tax deductions for those losses on the basis that the losses were business losses. Presumably, the losses were…