Discretionary Trust Beneficiaries

Hi WHJ

I’ll see if I can explain the answer you are looking for.

The Trust document should have 2 types of beneficiaries.

Specified Beneficiaries which is usually “the husband, the wife and any child or children of them”.

General Beneficaries which can be
1. parents, brothers, spouses, widows, cousins children and remoter issue and next of kin of the Specified Beneficaries
2. Any Charity
3. Any eligible corporation
4. Any eligible trust

BUT – 2,3 and 4 must be defined in the definitions section of the Trust Document.

If you have this in place then regardless of when you want to add a company or a new trust in the future as a beneficary you are covered under no. 3. and 4. without needing to alter your Trust Deed.

The good thing about a Discretionary Trust is that the Trustee has the discretion to distribute the income to whoever it likes within the names Specified Beneficaries or General Beneficaries.

If you are unsure about this you should speak to your Accountant and/or Solicitor.

Cheers
Nessie

My trust has me as trustee and the deed is worded so that any company that I am a shareholder of or office holder of is also automatically a beneficiary of the trust.

I think you can see some sample deeds at:
http://www.chrisbatten.com.au

Terryw
[email protected]