TaxRambling.com

The most annoying habit of the Commissioner is to let everyone do something for years and then to finally try to close it down. Take the Commissioner’s announcement on 16 December 2009 that an unpaid present entitlement from a trust to a corporate beneficiary is a loan to which Division 7A applies. So 12 years of saying every trust should have a corporate beneficiary and 12 years of auditing these structures saying nothing is overturned overnight… Well it is about to happen again I fear…

Thirty years ago, every accounting and legal partnership was a partnership of individuals. But this has changed to the point where the most common structure today is a partnership of discretionary trust rather than individuals. Actually these partnerships of discretionary trusts are becoming old hat as everyone moves to a company where the shareholders are discretionary trusts.

But in Taxpayer Alert TA 2013/3, the Commissioner raises concerns about the restructure from a partnership of individuals to a partnership of discretionary trusts. He does his norm “sham” argument but it is obvious he thinks these restructures may be schemes to which Part IVA might apply. The Commissioner states that professional practices may operate as a partnership of discretionary trusts, but may not be used for the to avoid tax obligation through income splitting.

This is only a Taxpayer Alert. And the Commissioner is very clear he is only considering tax benefits arising in the 2013/14 and later income years. So if you undertook a restructure like this before 1 July 2013 it appears it is safe.

But it starts to look like December 2009…