Over recent years there have been a number
of cases on trust law and fundamental principles. Some solutions to some questions have been
raised, but the Australian Taxation Office has raised other issues. Whilst the review of fundamental principles
of trusts is still underway, there have been some fixes to deal with capital
gains and imputation credits by trusts. These new provisions provide a structured
framework to satisfy tax law and can be extremely complex in implementation. On the other hand, a simple vanilla trust
without capital gains and imputation credits could well be simpler from a tax
perspective than it was several years ago. The legislation, the understanding, the
complexity and the multitude of obligations and reporting for simple vanilla
trusts, will inevitability mean that the cost of administration will increase
quite significantly. Whilst the benefits still remain from a tax
sharing for the current year, in future the benefits will diminish and
unfortunately the cost will increase.
20th-January-2012 |