I don’t have an idea what Steven is talking about. But here is an example of how restructuring a trust could help in one instance.

Tom is director of Tommo Pty Ltd which is trustee of the Tombo Trust. Tommo Pty Ltd owns a property as trustee of the trust and the property is worth $500,000 at purchase with a loan of $400,000. After 5 years the property is now worth $1,000,000 and the Tom wants to cause the trust to purchase another property by accessing the equity and using this as a deposit.

But Tom had a dispute with a mobile phone company about large downloads and he refused to pay the bill. It went to court and Tom lost with the mobile company getting a judgment for $3000. Tom quickly paid the bill, but he now has a black mark on his credit file and he can no longer get finance at reasonable rates. This means the trust will no longer be able to get finance to access the equity or to buy a new property. Tom seeks legal advice and resigns as director of the Tommo Pty Ltd and his wife Mrs Tom becomes director. Mrs Tom is clean credit wise, and has good income so she can now provide personal guarantees for the existing loan, equity increase loan and new purchase loan. And the trust can now buy that new property.

Much less than NSW which is 1.6% with no tax free threshold.

In QLD individuals generally get the $600k threshold each. Non individuals, absent individuals all get a lower threshold of $350k each.

For a SMSF and a unit trust see schedule 2 of the land tax act QLD.

In QLD separate trusts each get a threshold, but there is a trap for young players here so get advice.

I would suggest a car park is a bad investment. Best to avoid.

Since each trust needs a separate tax return it shouldn’t make much different in fees for the tax return. A company as trustee has no income or expenses of its own so would be a nil return – maybe no return needed at all.

Being a director is a role, not property that can fall into the hands of creditors – but the shares of the company can. So it may be a good idea to change trustees asap.

first thing to do is to review the deed. Find out who has the power to change trustees. Often it will be the appointor, sometimes it may be an appointor and a protector other trusts it may be the trustee.

The deed must be followed strictly. If the apppointor is required to give written notification to the trustee then this must happen. Non delivery may mean the change is invalid. Even if the appoinntor is Bob and Bob is the sole director of the company Bob should send a regitered letter to himself for proof.

Legal advice should be sought, especially on the stamp duty side. In NSW there is generally no stamp duty or just $50 but there may be full duty if changing trustee means a change in the beneficiaries of the trust. Wording of the deed is important.

Any mortgages over trust property will need to be released and new loans and mortgages entered into by the new trustee. Its a major event.

And a trustee has fiduciary duties, but so does an appointor. so specialist legal advice would be a good idea before changing anything, especially if bankruptcy is looming. A bankrupt person cannot act as director, so a new director should be sought and new shareholders conisdered – a trustee of another trust perhaps. Also read the deed about what happens to the position of appointor if the appointor becomes bankrupt. In my deeds the appointor is removed automatically.

Legally speaking only if the trust terms allow it, otherwise a breach of trust.

Do you want the trustee to obtain a margin loan against the shares? (see if trustee is allowed to do this first) and then consider whether this is a good idea in terms of risk. If not talking about margin loans then perhaps you asking if the trustee can lend trust money? Again depends on the powers in the deed.

If you sold yo would have around $100k cash. Using this on a PPOR will save you around $5000 pa in interest each year for the next 20-30 years. You might then be able to borrow to invest and get something with better capital growth prospects.

Interesting Jaxon. I haven’t seen it done that way before.

Advice is not to look at land tax in isolation. No point buying somewhere with low growth only to avoid land tax.