My Family Trust

If you have a family trust there is a high likelihood that its trust deed is an off the shelf document that was arranged by your accountant when the trust was first established.

Surcharge transfer (stamp) duty and surcharge land tax have been imposed on foreign persons and foreign entities since 21 June 2016. Since 1 January 2021, discretionary trusts are deemed to be foreign trusts unless the possibly of a distribution of any of the trust assets or income to a foreign person is specifically and irrevocably excluded.

To ensure that foreign surcharge duty or land tax is not imposed it essential that the trust deed is carefully reviewed. Often amendment of the trust deed is necessary.

Revenue NSW is currently examining many transactions that have taken place over the last few years and is retrospectively imposing surcharge transfer duty and/or surcharge land tax where a residential property has been purchased by a discretionary trust and the trust deed has either not been updated or has not been updated properly.

We have seen cases where a trust has owned property since well before 2016, but Revenue NSW has retrospectively imposed surcharge land tax.

If you are not sure if your trust deed needs to be updated, you can read more about our fixed fee package for that service here.