Supperannuation and Wills

Yeh, prooves how much we learn at school. Some accountants dont really know much about trusts at all. (my partners accountant for example)

Ive just been learning about bucket companies. If all the beneficiaries in a trust are paying the top marginal rate then you may divert extra profits into these. The tax rate on this is capped at 30%. Im not sure about this but my understanding is that you may direct this back to any of the beneficaries?

http://www.tangibleassets.com.au/bucket_company.html

As I was dozing of I came to a resoluation. My grandfather recently told me that he updated the will so that my father would be an equal shareholder of his company to my grandmother if he dies before her. But that was done with the solicitor (has the will) not the accountant who has the trust deed. My understanding is that the roles of the various people in the trust is just as, (if not more) important than the directions on the will. After all, the will directions do not assign control of assets held in a trust, they control assets held in the name of the testator at the time of his/her death.

I also do remember you mentioning that if you have two trustees then you may have two appointers. (i,e, the grandfather and grandmother).

Could the trust be structured in such a way so that if my grandfather passes first then my father takes the role of my
grandfather as appointer (for 50% of legal control over trust) and my grandmother remains the appointer for the other 50% legal control of the trust?

In which case my father and my grandmother would have equal control over the trust.

In a nut shell I just need to explain this to my grandfather so that the directions on the will correlate with the instructions on the trust deed in regards to the way in which upon his death the roles of the appointer/s are given. The only way to do this effectively is to have two appointers.

Seeing as they both dislike each other tremendously its important that the role of appointer is not given soley to any of them as either way they may well just cut each other (and the relevant families!) out.

Also please help me correct any incorrect terms used in this as I may very well use this message as a template for explaining all this to my grandfather and they may use it to propose to the accountant.

Well my grandfather did mention company when he was explaining his understanding of the will. Perhaps there is three trustees…

He kept refering to it as "his" company. Also that when he goes my father becomes half of his company and my grandmother reamins the oher half….

Or perhaps your right it has some other role…

I think you would need to have an odd number of appointers (e.g. 3), for example what if one wants to fire a trustee and one wants to keep. How would you reach a resolution….

But then again if you had separate trustees for your half of the trust assets then there may be no need for dispute as they are separate.

I think we would probably have to make separate trusts eventually in that case. But can you create a new trust without paying significant capital gains tax and or other taxes…?

Also if you didnt want to sell your half of an asset how may you transfer half of an asset into a separate trust for the other person.