43 As noted above, Mesha Feet did not advance any submissions in support of the existence of an offsetting claim. As such, while raised in the originating process, the point was abandoned. In any event, even if not abandoned, I do not accept that the invoices and demands issued by Mesha Feet demonstrate that Mesha Feet has a credible offsetting claim (s 459H(1)(b) of the Corporations Act). Any suggestion that the ATO is indebted to Mesha Feet is spurious. For completeness, I note that Mesha Feet did not contend that there is any defect in the demand causing substantial injustice, or "some other reason" by reference to which the statutory demand may be set aside pursuant to s 459J of the Corporations Act.
44 Mesha Feet's contention that it effectively discharged its taxation liabilities by the "Promissory Note" and the "Bill of Exchange" are spurious and must be rejected. Payment by those means is not a means of payment approved by the Commissioner (reg 21(2) of the Regulations). As the Defendant submitted, this is dispositive and it is not necessary to get bogged down in arguments regarding whether the particular "Promissory Note" and "Bill of Exchange" constitute "Australian currency" for the purposes of reg 21(1) of the Regulations.
45 Regulation 21(2) is expressed in positive terms. It refers to means of payment that are "approved by the Commissioner". The fact that there is no legislation specifying that promissory notes and bills of exchange cannot be used as means to pay tax debts is beside the point. The point is that they are not means of payment that have been approved. The negative (absence of an express prohibition on payment by bills of exchange or promissory notes) does not establish the positive (approval of those means of payment by the Commissioner).
46 I also do not accept Mesha Feet's argument that a promissory note is "cash", and that a bill of exchange is a "cheque". That argument was run as the ATO says it accepts cash and cheques as means by which tax debts can be paid. The argument is a specious "bootstraps" argument, which proceeded by suggesting that a $100 note was a promissory note, and that a cheque was a bill of exchange. Even accepting the premise, it does not follow that all promissory notes are cash and all bills of exchange are cheques.
47 Nor do I accept that, as submitted by Mesha Feet, this presents a tension between different pieces of Federal legislation, or is inconsistent with the eight pieces of Federal legislation to which Mesha Feet referred.
48 The first of the eight pieces of legislation Mesha Feet relied on was s 89(1) of the Bills of Exchange Act 1909 (Cth) (the Bills of Exchange Act). That provision is in the following terms:
