Section 1318 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) cannot be invoked to relieve a director from liability for a penalty under s 222AOC of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) for failure to cause the company to remit PAYG deductions. On one view (Spigelman CJ), s 1318 does not extend to any statutory obligation outside the Corporations Act. On the alternative view (Santow JA and Basten JA), even if s 1318 could in principle extend to obligations with sufficient corporate character, Divisions 8 and 9 of the ITAA constitute an exhaustive regime whose specific defences and mechanisms are inconsistent with the general dispensing power. The possible mutual exclusivity of s 1318 and s 1317S was noted but left open.
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