Essential Guide for Studying Law
Please view the Essential Guide for Studying Law, for the word limit policy. The word count must be stated on the front cover of the assignment.
Assessment Question: The Problem Question will test your learning of GST. The question will be uploaded to Moodle early in the trimester.
Assignment Style: Please refer to the style checklist in the Essential Guide for Studying Law for details on how the assignment should be formatted.
Referencing style that the assessment must comply with: Australian Guide to Legal Citation.
Expected feedback available: Ordinarily within 30 days of submission and available in Moodle.
A Guide to Answering Legal Problems
There are four basic steps to answering a fact-based legal problem (known as the IRAC method). They are:
Identify the issues. Identify the matters that you are going to have to deal with in answering the problem.
Refer to the legal principles that are relevant to the issues you have identified together with appropriate legislation and/or case law. A short statement of the law is relevant here.
Apply the legal principles to the issues. Consider how the facts that you have referred to, when identifying the issues, are affected by the relevant law.
Conclude. This requires you to take a stand on the outcome.
The ultimate aim of your answer is to be persuasive. Demonstrate your knowledge of the law and how it applies to the given facts, through clear and logical arguments. There may not always be a definitive answer. You should be trying to convince the reader of your conclusions.
How you set out your answers is up to you. Ask yourself if your answers are clear and precise. Use headings to guide the reader where appropriate. Do not merely regurgitate information from primary and secondary sources.
Marking Criteria for the Assignment
There is no specific allocation of marks to individual criteria. The mark awarded reflects the overall quality of the written assignment taking into account all criteria.
Content demonstrates
Identification of issues
Knowledge of the relevant legislation and relevant case law.
Application of the relevant legislation and case law to the facts of the question.
Structure demonstrates
Clearly laid out actions with logical progression through the various elements
Careful organisation
Expression, style and presentation demonstrates
Recognition of nature of audience
Recognition of purpose of assessment to assess your ability to analyse and apply the relevant law to a given set of facts
Written in plain English, in a style which is clear, fluent and concise.
Careful proofreading
Citation
Accurate Citation of sources, compliant with the AGLC.
Word Length
Within the stated word length
Assessment criteria:
The criteria provided for the essay will be used to assess responses to the exam questions.
General expected feedback available: Posted after the exam on the Moodle site.
Referencing style that the assessment must comply with: Australian Guide to Legal Citation.
The AGLC will not be strictly applied. However, all references need to include identifying information the name of the case; and author and name of an article referred to. Please note, that if you include a direct quote from a book, journal article etc., then the full citation must be included.
The Examinations page has important information about examinations, including your responsibilities as a student in relation to exams, information about examination dates and special exams, and links to whom to contact if you have queries.
Problem Question: 20% Assessment value
Word Limit: 2000 words
Problem Question
Bigger and Better Towers Ltd (BB Towers) is a property investment and development company. BB Towers commenced operations in October 2015 and their annual turnover is $100 million per annum.
In January 2019 BB Towers purchased some vacant land in Sydney, with the intention of building 15 town houses to sell. By early 2020 BB Towers had built 10 town houses and were on the market for $1 million each.
10 buyers were found by the local real estate agent Peter Smith Pty Ltd, a private company registered for GST. Peter Smith charged a flat 2 % commission fee plus GST for each town house sale, based on the sale price of $1 million.
BT Towers engaged the services of the local lawyer, John James, to provide the legal services required for the sales of $3,300 per town house. John runs an established sole trader business and turns over revenue of $300,000 per year.
Advise all parties of the GST implications of the above.
