Trust Administration

The Government is to abolish gift duty, confident any risks to creditor protection or the targeting of social assistance programmes can be met by other laws. The 125-year-old tax has brought in an average of $2.2 million a year for the Government over the past seven years, and on a declining trend, but cost tax payers $70 million a year to comply with! Not exactly a very economic tax. While annual gifting may not be necessary in future the administration of clients’ trusts is still a very important service and we have developed a Trust Administration Service to provide assistance to clients in future.

Rather than attend to gifting as an annual service on the anniversary of the date 12 months after last gifting we will in future attend to gifting and Trust Administration as part of preparing the annual financial statements for each trust. For those clients who have trading trusts, this will be business as usual. Where the trust is not trading and merely owns the family home then we will still need to prepare a balance sheet each year to confirm the financial status of the trust's assets and record any gifting that may be required.

It is essential that trusts are administered properly to ensure that down the track no issues arise that throw doubt on the status of the trust or its assets.
If you believe that a trust would assist you and your family please call us to discuss.