The ATO has warned that it is looking closely at how trusts distribute income and to who.
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Estate Planning
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From 1 July 2020, new rules will come into effect to ensure that an employee’s salary sacrifice contributions cannot be used to reduce the amount of superannuation guarantee (SG) paid by the employer.
One of the stranger pieces of legislation to be introduced into Parliament last month is an attempt to ensure that overseas welfare recipients over the age of 80 are in fact, alive.
Living a financially organised life inevitably also means preparing for a financially organised death.
Having a sound estate plan in place is more than just writing a Will, and is definitely not something that should be left until the last minute. Developing a strategic estate plan is essential when you are planning for retirement. So, where do you start?
For most people the end of a relationship is an extremely traumatic time, and there are very few couples who go through this process without seeking the professional advice of a family lawyer.
It’s a sad fact that life does not always go to plan. While we logically know that, most of us don’t plan for the worst - it’s all a bit morbid and time consuming.
The downside of not planning is the potential for hard earned assets to be squandered, family fall-outs, and money handed to the Government that could have been distributed in accord with your wishes. If you are a business owner, then the stakes are even higher.
Let’s face it, thinking and talking about death and what happens there after can be a pretty morbid affair…but what if you don’t?
Your SMSF’s trust deed is its rulebook. If the deed does not allow or recognise something then the trustees can’t do it. Despite this, a lot of trustees are unaware of what their trust deed says – it was just something that was required when the fund was established. The problem with any document is that unless you amend it, it is only current for the circumstances that existed at that time. However, the law changes regularly and so do individual circumstances.
This month, we shortcut the review process and highlight the key SMSF trust deed problem areas.