You can divert the money to a company to cap the tax at 30%, but then you have problems with accessing the money.

The company can loan it back to the trust or to a beneficiary etc, but there are strict rules regarding this, known as Division 7A. Written commercial agreements are required.

In the good old days you could just borrow and never pay back!

In law school you only spend about 4 weeks on trusts and then you are not taught the commercial aspects or tax aspects so you can't really expect lawyers to know much about trusts unless they have an interest in the area. Same with accountants too.

i am a solicitor specialising in trusts and estate planning, but learned everything i know by my own research.

You would have to show me the deed to make an assessment. eg. you may not be named specifically, or by title such as grandchild, but could be indirectly such as any shareholder of a company which……..

You can't generally add beneficiaries as this would mean a new trust is formed which means a resettlement = CGT and stamp duty on the whole trust estate. But there may be ways to include you via other methods.

Depends how involved the accountant is.

Deeds will need to be updated this year to meet the changing definition of 'income' and other complicated issues following the famous Bamford case. Otherwise extra tax could be payable.

A company could be a trustee in addition to them both, though unlikely.

I wonder if they have had the deed updated? There have been huge changes over the last few years – eg the introduction of GST!

The appointor is likely to be one or both of them I think. Unlikely to be the accountant, you hope anyway.

Also, if you are a beneficiary of the trust you probably have a legal right to view the trust deed and to view the financial records of the trust – even if you have never received a distribution.

Rams would probably have huge exit fees too.

Don't know there is much for her to do. She will be making a loss and have no other income so probably a negative taxable income. This is a bit of a waste as she could be earning up to $16,000 pa and pay no tax. If only you could pay her $16,000 pa for something and claim a deduction for it.

Best to talk to your tax advisor who may know your full situation and have a few tricks they can run.

ok, fair enough. Sorry to have made it seem so bad!

Yeah, it would be great to use our super to pay for our homes now.

The trouble is some, or many, people would blow it, mortgage their houses and gamble the money away etc,