When will the Commissioner refuse to exercise his discretion to apply Part IVA?
If it is accepted that s 177F supplies the Commissioner with a real discretion as to whether to apply Part IVA, the next questions that arise are: • What factors will the Commissioner consider in determining whether to exercise his discretion to apply Part IVA? • When will the Commissioner exercise his discretion not to apply Part IVA? These two questions are linked. It is important to determine what are relevant and irrelevant considerations to the exercise of the Commissioner’s discretion, as these will help predict when the Commissioner will exercise his discretion not to apply Part IVA. For the discretion to have any purpose (and for the structure of Part IVA to make sense) the factors the Commissioner will consider under s 177F must differ from those that will be considered in establishing the preconditions. For example, it is unlikely that factors such as the deductibility of the expenses under other provisions of the ITAA 1997 or ITAA 1936 would be relevant, as this has already
