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Investing in real estate with a SMSF – traps & entanglement

BadSystem

There is more to investing in real estate together with a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) than meets the eye. It can be fraught and illegal under SMSF rules. This blog looks at why.

Joint tenancy ownership compared to ownership by tenants-in-common

The title of this blog piece does not refer to investing jointly with a SMSF and this is deliberate. Co-ownership of land can be joint: viz. as joint tenants, where a surviving joint owner or owners take the interest of a joint owner who dies, or can be as tenant/s-in-common (TsIC) where each co-owner owns a discrete co-ownership interest in a fixed proportion of the whole outright ownership interest in the land which, in the case of an individual on his or her demise, will form a part of his or her estate just as an interest in land owned by a sole individual owner would.

Which type of ownership works where a (trustee of a) SMSF is a co-owner?

Joint tenancy is usually only appropriate for life partners. Investing in a joint tenancy can also work for joint trustees of a trust where, on the death of a trustee, it is appropriate that the property be legally owned by surviving trustee/s.

The point here is joint tenancy is inapt and inappropriate investing between a member of a SMSF and the SMSF obliged to deal on arm’s length basis under section 109 of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act (C’th) 1993 (SIS Act) with all parties including the member when co-ownership of an asset is under contemplation. A SMSF needs to acquire assets at arm’s length and assets acquired need to have a discrete integrity which joint tenancy ownership doesn’t give.

So, if there is to be co-ownership between members or related parties and a SMSF investing in land, it needs to be as TsIC.

Related parties of a SMSF include:

  • relatives of the Members (spouse, children, siblings, etc.);
  • the (business) partners (Partners) of the Members;
  • the spouse and children of the Partners;
  • companies (Companies) controlled by the Members or any of the above (Associates);
  • the members of the SMSF (Members) themselves; or
  • trusts controlled by the Members, Associates and Companies.

(See Part 8 associates in Sub-division B of Part 8 of the SIS Act.)

Co-ownership of land between SMSF members and the SMSF as tenants-in-common

There is a further trap where SMSF members or other related parties and a SMSF contemplate co-ownership of land as TsIC where the land is residential property (RP):

Prohibition on acquisition of assets from superannuation fund members and related parties

With very limited exceptions, real estate with a residence cannot be business real property (BRP): see Self Managed Superannuation Funds Ruling SMSFR 2009/1 Self Managed Superannuation Funds: business real property for the purposes of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993.  A SMSF cannot acquire an asset from a related party of the SMSF (section 66(1) of the SIS Act) unless an exception applies such as the exception for BRP (permitted under para 66(2)(b) of the SIS Act).

A breach by a trustee of a SMSF of section 66 can result in criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the individual trustee/s or director/s of the trustee (TEsDRs), as the case may be, for up to one year (sub-section 66(4) of the SIS Act).

It follows that the trustee of a SMSF cannot, or likely cannot, lawfully acquire RP already owned by a member/related party of the SMSF unless the RP is BRP. This prohibition works in substance as schemes that have the result that RP of a member/related party of a SMSF is acquired by a SMSF, say indirectly via sale to the SMSF and then purchase back by the SMSF from an intermediary unrelated to the SMSF, are also caught by section 66 and are similarly prohibited: sub-section 66(3).

Implications for related co-owners who own RP as tenants-in-common with a SMSF

This has further implication when RP is acquired and co-owned where a SMSF is an established co-owner: let us say where the RP is purchased in an arm’s length sale on the open market.

The SMSF owns a part of the RP as a TsIC but section 66 prohibits the SMSF from buying more of the RP from the related TsIC who is now a co-owner too. That further purchase would be acquisition of an asset from a member/related party. The same anti-scheme rule in sub-section 66(3) again applies to prevent the SMSF acquiring a further interest owned by a related party as a TsIC indirectly through a scheme.

An unsatisfactory entanglement

So the entanglement of a related party in the ownership of RP effectively prevents the SMSF from ever owning the whole of a RP it invests in as TsIC with a related party. This bears on, or should have borne on, the investment decision of the SMSF trustee to invest in the RP in the first place.

Entanglement gets worse when a SMSF has individual trustees and these individual trustees are members of the SMSF with whom the SMSF co-invests in RP. Under land law in most Australian states and territories only these individuals appear on title as registered owners of the RP. Without further steps, such as registering a caveat, the trustees of the SMSF, obliged to act at arm’s length from themselves, are poorly placed to assert co-ownership of the RP by the SMSF and to comply with mandatory covenants applicable to a SMSF including:

(b)   to exercise, in relation to all matters affecting the fund, the same degree of care, skill and diligence as an ordinary prudent person would exercise in dealing with property of another for whom the person felt morally bound to provide;

(d)   to keep the money and other assets of the fund separate from any money and assets, respectively:

  (i)   that are held by the trustee personally; or

  (ii)   that are money or assets, as the case may be, of a standard employer – sponsor, or an associate of a standard employer – sponsor, of the fund;

(e)   not to enter into any contract, or do anything else, that would prevent the trustee from, or hinder the trustee in, properly performing or exercising the trustee’s functions and powers;

from sub-section 52B(2) of the SIS Act

Entanglement disrupting sale of the TsIC interest by a SMSF

An investment in an asset which is not discretely saleable raises further section 52B covenant difficulty. The section 52B covenants continue:

(f)   to formulate, review regularly and give effect to an investment strategy that has regard to the whole of the circumstances of the fund including, but not limited to, the following:

  (i)   the risk involved in making, holding and realising, and the likely return from, the fund’s investments, having regard to its objectives and its expected cash flow requirements;

  (ii)   the composition of the fund’s investments as a whole including the extent to which the investments are diverse or involve the fund in being exposed to risks from inadequate diversification;

  (iii)   the liquidity of the fund’s investments, having regard to its expected cash flow requirements;

  (iv)   the ability of the fund to discharge its existing and prospective liabilities;

paragraph 52B(2)(f) of the SIS Act

Investing in a marooned asset

So does a trustee of a SMSF who invests in a asset that is marooned, because it can’t be readily sold without the co-operation of a co-owner or co-owners also selling, adequately deal with the risks referred to in paragraph 52B(2)(f)? Assumption that a related party TsIC will always co-operate with a co-owner trustee of a SMSF TsIC is incompatible with the section 109 of the SIS Act obligation of the trustee to act an arm’s length basis in its dealings including dealings with related parties.

Based on the section 52B covenants and section 109 the trustee/s of a SMSF should establish proper motive for making an investment as a co-owner in RP. To do that there likely needs to be either an exchange of:

  • tag along drag along rights; or
  • rights to require other TsICs to buy each other out of their interests;

so the SMSF can realise its investment in a TsIC investment interest in RP when it needs to meet its s52B(2)(f) covenants without being marooned in the investment.

The mandatory covenants in section 52B on trustees of SMSFs are between the trustee/s of the SMSF and the members of the SMSF. When they are the same people there are only occasional cases where a member would sue trustees for breach. The covenants are not civil penalty provisions.

Civil penalty provisions

In the SIS Act civil penalty provisions have these potential consequences for SMSFs:

  1. breach can lead to the Australian Taxation Office as SMSF regulator (ATO as R) issuing a notice of non-compliance (NONC) to a SMSF so it is no longer a complying superannuation fund where:
    1. non-complying superannuation funds pay 45% income tax on their assessable income; and
    2. the assessable income of a fund that becomes a non-complying superannuation fund under a NONC must include the value of the assets of the fund, less undeducted contributions, at the beginning of the income year when the fund becomes non-complying. This is a significant penalty as it effectively taxes the fund’s accumulated assets at the 45% rate: see Subdivision 295-E of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.
  2. intentional breach can result in criminal prosecution of TEsDRs: section 202 of the SIS Act;
  3. administrative penalties on TEsDRs (in less serious cases taken not to warrant the above): s166 of the SIS Act; and
  4. the ATO as R can give the TEsDRs directions to rectify (section 159 of the SIS Act) the breach or educational directions (section 160 of the SIS Act).

    Consequences 1 to 3 don’t apply to a breach that is solely or simply a breach of the section 52B mandatory covenants. Consequences 4 can happen though: the ATO as R can give TEsDRs a direction to rectify requiring sale of a marooned TsIC interest acquired in RP in breach of the covenants in paragraph 52B(2)(f).

    Sole purpose fails

    Even where the RP is let out under a lease entirely at arm’s length to an arm’s length tenant there could still be a sole purpose civil penalty provision problem under section 62 of the SIS Act where the purpose of an investment by the SMSF in RP was not so much to generate returns to the SMSF, or to assist a SMSF to fund the payment of SMSF benefits to members, but rather to finance SMSF member acquisition of an investment property. Not bothering to arrange the above rights for the SMSF amplifies the prospect that a SMSF auditor or the ATO as R will reach that conclusion about the illicit purpose of the trustee/s of the SMSF.

    Where the RP is acquired for a member or related party of the SMSF to live in then breach of the section 62 civil penalty provision will be yet more serious and clear cut.

    Entanglement of financing

    The need for a SMSF member and SMSF co-investors in RP as TsIC to co-operate extends further. The SMSF member borrowing with recourse or security over the property can amount to a charge over the property breaching SIS Regulations 13.14 and 13.15 and, where the recourse or security is called in, the SMSF might find itself co-investing with a financier eager to sell up the RP. In June 2011 the Commissioner and tax professionals considered these issues which were reported in National Tax Liason Group technical minutes. These can be difficult to locate on the somewhat dynamic Australian Taxation Office website so we have uploaded a copy here

    It follows that a mortgage can’t be given to the financier of the co-owning member/s of the SMSF over the RP co-owned by the SMSF. Giving security over the TsIC interest only of the member/s of the SMSF who borrow only may be possible but that security needs to be carefully target only the borrower’s TsIC interest so that it has no reach to impact or to give any recourse against the TsIC interest of the SMSF in the RP.

    Unit trust alternative?

    Investment of more than 5% of a superannuation fund in in-house assets under Part 8 of the SIS Act can give rise to breach of a civil penalty provision with the potential Consequences 1-4 described above: section 84 of the SIS Act.

    In 1999 the meaning of in house asset was widened to curtail significant investment by SMSFs in particular in related unit trusts. A popular strategy, to establish a unit trust to hold RP in which SMSFs and their related parties could hold units, could no longer be used without running into an in house asset problem.  A carve-out to in house asset treatment was extended in Division 13.3A–In-house assets of superannuation funds of the SIS Regulations for companies and unit trusts that:

    • are continuously non-geared, that is never have liabilities;
    • have assets that are not investments in other entities;
    • do not conduct a business; and
    • neither lend nor borrow

    so that SMSFs could invest in shares or units in them without these being in house assets.

    An exception in sub-paragraph 66(2A)(a)(iv) of the SIS Act means that investment in say a SIS Regulation 13.22C non-geared unit trust to hold RP is not only excluded from being an in-house asset under paragraph 71(1)(j), but its acquisition from a related party is not prohibited under sub-section 66(1).

    Non-geared unit trust compared to co-investing in residential property as tenants-in-common

    This is a significant advantage over investing in an interest as a TsIC in RP. So a SIS Regulation 13.22C non-geared vehicle should be seriously considered as an alternative to investing with a related party in RP as a TsIC. Still a SIS Regulation 13.22C non-geared unit trust is nevertheless a challenging structure for indirect SMSF investing in RP as:

    1. the compliance requirements, especially those that cause abrupt loss of the in house asset exclusion in SIS Regulation 13.22D are daunting (albeit the problems with investing as a TsIC in RP are covertly so and are all across the SIS Act , as this post illustrates); and
    2. units in a non-geared unit trust that don’t amount to all of the units in the trust still have the same propensity to be marooned assets of the SMSF unless the investing SMSF can compel all other unit holders to buy or drag along when the SMSF needs to realise its investment.

Used the wrong/ trustee’s ABN for a new trust? How to fix …

WrongBox

A common mistake, misstep or omission on setting up a family discretionary trust (FDT) or other kinds of trusts is to use the Australian Business Number (ABN) of the trustee of the trust, typically a proprietary company, rather than to obtain and use a separate ABN after the trust has been established to run a business or enterprise.

Situations where this can happen include:

  • an ABN application form is completed incorrectly for the company without correctly identifying the FDT as the entity to which the application applies;
  • early application for the ABN is made by the company for an ABN, say so the company can say, open a bank account before the trust formation; or
  • the company is already doing other things and has an ABN already.

In each of these situations a client of an accountant can be tempted to use the ABN already to hand for the FDT. A client so tempted may well think – my accountant can sort this out later!

ABN for the wrong entity

It’s a clear mistake as a trust is clearly a separate entity to the company. An entity that can obtain an ABN under the A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999 is equivalent to an entity as defined under the companion GST legislation which is:

(1)  Entity means any of the following:

(a) an individual;

(b) a body corporate;

(c) a corporation sole;

(d) a body politic;

(e) a partnership;

(f) any other unincorporated association or body of persons;

(g) a trust;

(h) a superannuation fund.

Note: The term entity is used in a number of different but related senses. It covers all kinds of legal persons. It also covers groups of legal persons, and other things, that in practice are treated as having a separate identity in the same way as a legal person does.

sub-section 184-1(1) of the A New Tax System (Goods And Services Tax) Act 1999

which also conforms with other definitions of entity in the Income Tax Assessment Acts (ITAAs). Its clear that a company can have an ABN and a trust with a company as its trustee can and should separately obtain another ABN where the trust is to carry on an enterprise requiring an ABN.

The usual trust implementation

The usual implementation of an asset protected FDT is to set up the FDT with a corporate trustee with limited liability where the company is to be a dormant company. That is the company will have modest nominal share capital so it can register as a proprietary company with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) but the company will not have business or other substantive assets or liabilities on its own behalf as all intended activity of the FDT will be as the trustee of the FDT.

The company must have a right to be indemnified out of the property of the FDT so that the directors will not be personally liable for the debts of the trust under section 197 of the Corporations Act 2001 but, in terms of the balance sheet of the corporate trustee of a FDT, that right and the share capital are about the only few assets the company needs in the role of trustee of a FDT.

Impact of the wrong ABN

But if an ABN for the company is quoted on bank accounts and on invoices then the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and all others concerned with the business are informed that transactions thought to be made by the FDT for its business are made by the company in its own right. The accountant for the FDT will have little choice but to record the transactions as transactions of the company in its own right and prepare the accounts of the company accordingly. Significant penalties can apply if the company persists with a position that it was quoting the ABN of the company for activity of an entity without an ABN rather than for activity in its own right.

So instead of the accounts of the company being dormant and those of the FDT being active, the business transactions will go to the accounts of the company and nothing will happen on FDT accounts and the implementation of the trust to operate the business will misfire.

If the business is being run under a business name, where the ABN of the company was used to apply for and obtain the business name, then the ATO and all others concerned with the business will view and treat the business name as a business name of the company and not the FDT.

Fixing the problem – reverting to the trust structure

This is one of those problems that can’t be fixed retrospectively without penalty trouble – the ABN has been quoted and relied on, but the problem can be fixed going forward.

Get the right ABN

The FDT can belatedly apply for an ABN. It is possible for an ABN to have retrospective application viz. the ABN can take effect from a date nominated by the applicant some time prior to the time of the application. But the ABN taking earlier effect won’t cure the problem of where the wrong ABN has been quoted since then.

Restore the company balance sheet

The company shouldn’t need to be voluntarily liquidated but a comparable internal process can be done to transfer the assets and liabilities in the accounts of the company to the FDT and to restore the balance sheet of the company to the modest assets described under The usual trust implementation above from a set fix or changeover date. If the problem is picked up early enough – it should be! –significant income tax profit and capital gains tax exposures of transferring assets to the FDT that may require remedy such as the small business restructure rollover in Division 328-G of the ITAA 1997 may not necessarily be needed to reset the company balance sheet.

Coping with the administrative consequences of changeover

If a client of an accountant has put itself into this sort of tangle it is likely that the client will struggle with this remedial action too which presents some administrative challenges as the client is now dealing with, effectively, two discrete businesses before and after the changeover day: The business initially carried on by the company with its ABN and then the business carried on by the FDT with its ABN from the changeover day.

It is important that the accounting and administrative team of the client (the Team) can pinpoint company period transactions before the changeover date and FDT period transactions that happen after the changeover day.

So a further element of the fix proposed here is to change the name of the company and for the Team to be meticulous about changing processes and stationery etc. to the new company name once the changeover day happens and the FDT period is underway.

There is an ASIC cost to change the name of the company and stationery etc., and time of the Team to manage all of this, but that cost should be considered in the context of alternatives that are costlier such as to voluntarily liquidate the company, to start afresh with an entirely new business structure to get the ABN process right or to abandon plans to use the FDT structure altogether.

A common technique for a name change for a company running a business, when a name change isn’t really wanted for public facing reasons; is to change NameOfCompany Pty. Ltd. to say NameOfCompany (Aust.) Pty. Ltd. This can help the Team and its customers to apply the right ABN and to get the accounting right (e.g. sales put through the right books of the two distinct entities NameOfCompany Pty. Ltd. to NameOfCompany (Aust.) Pty. Ltd (as trustee for the FDT) in this example for before and after changeover day transactions.

Unless something like this is done the Team and customers of the business might get very confused and might not manage the transition to the FDT as sought all along.

Impact of name change on the appointed FDT trustee

Unlike a liquidation of the company, after which a new trustee of the trust would need to be set up and appointed, a name change won’t affect the position of the company as the trustee of the trust.

A dentist might be better than the cheapest guy with a drill

drill

Proprietary company setups are not all the same. The $512 ASIC registration fee doesn’t get you a constitution for your company. Company constitutions vary and are on a quality spectrum and quality can count just like with any product.

Is a company constitution worth having?

A company set up without a constitution gets a one size fits call called the replaceable rules which gives a bare bones way for the company, and those involved in it, to operate. One size fits all can lead to a unintended outcomes. For instance an often unforeseen, easy to trip, requirement is to notify other directors of a conflict of interest between a director and the company. A properly tailored company constitution can modify conflict of interest rules away from the one size fits all to suit a company where only mum and dad are directors. Failure to do this can get weaponised like, say, when directors get divorced. And don’t think that this is the only reason why the replaceable rules may be a poor fit for your company.

Getting a capital structure of a company right

I do work sorting out situations made worse because companies are not understood by those setting them up. A company’s ideal capital structure is a big issue when a company is acting in its own right and not a trustee. Unless you understand the impact of s112-20 of the ITAA 1997 on the issue of shares in the company you’re a big chance to pay more capital gains tax that you might have when you sell or exit out of a company that has grown.

Company capital structure fails can lead to unnecessary loss of small business CGT concessions for small business which can amount to a big economic cost where a company ends up being a good business.

Getting “my” money out of a company

Shareholders try to get “their” money out of a company following a poorly executed lawyer free setup is another world of grief which can ironically bring in the lawyers, the ATO and expensive insolvency specialists.

A reckoning on death

Lots of problems don’t show up until a shareholder dies. This is often when the problem comes to my desk. It is sad when a family is tied in knots because their company establishment going way back was stuffed up. Any company setup, whichever way, might seem the same through times of smooth sailing. Why bother with the pesky paperwork at all? Wait, too, until the shareholders divorce, a fight amongst shareholders ensues or there is trading or tax trouble with the company: a sudden turn of interest, then, in the company’s capital, structure and records.

The “professional services” industry – escape for profit

Most of the non-legal providers on the internet are suss. They are derived from the offshore tax haven shell company “professional services” industry or use their business model. ICIJ media gives you an idea of their ethics https://cutt.ly/oUO7bvW and how they help their customers deal with local rules and commitments (not). Their model is to hide and escape from them.

Company constitutions, trust and SMSF deeds and partnership agreements are legal documents, and these providers are there to help you escape from having to get them from a lawyer charging a fee who is ethically obliged to professionally prepare them and whose work is covered by a professional indemnity/negligence insurance to protect you. And what about these rights? What a solicitor must tell you https://go.ly/P0jLU Worth having?

Their model is often something like this: we are not lawyers, so we give you escape from lawyers with this service. But we offer documents which are (based on) documents authored by a lawyer.

Reality check on unqualified legal practice

However you take this double-think pitch on the merits of avoiding lawyers, a reality is that the model is illegal: see the Federal Court case of Australian Competition & Consumer Commission v. Murray [2002] FCA 1252 https://jade.io/article/106192 to appreciate how documents supplied this way is from an unqualified legal practice source.

Ah! lawyers

There is a misconception that lawyers in this space are not worth the fees. I, for one, reckon my operation is lean and mean. And there are others like me. Sure my company and trust setup services cost a little more because my setups involve me thinking about and taking responsibility for what I am asked to do, and guiding clients on their setup choices based on what I know about them and thirty-five years’ experience of the ever changing traps – and that can’t be done by AI, yet.

What you get

So I can’t “compete” with a non-thinking service which gives you a company, trust or SMSF setup from a sausage cutter: documents all done and delivered instantaneously, with your credit card charged just as fast. But you get my drift: this blindingly impressive service just may be just too fast, hassle-free and brain-free. Look at the fine print (hello accountants) about who takes responsibility for loss if anything, including data inputs for which the inputter is made fully responsible, turn out not quite right.

So I agree. It just might be better to go to a dentist than the cheapest guy with a drill.

This post is actually from a post I made to another blog.  I think it’s worth another post on this blog even though it’s a more unruly and uncompromising than my usual posts here!

Should our SMSF have kept its Principal Employer?

MissingPiece

Last month’s piece Lost SMSF trust deed replacement deeds – are they a scam? is my exposé of SMSF (self managed superannuation fund) trust deed variation techniques revealed as dodgy in the light of high Australian legal authority there set out.

So my exposé can be better appreciated and understood: this month I turn to some typical dilemmas faced by a SMSF trustee trying to update SMSF trust terms to:

  • keep them up to date with changing superannuation and tax laws; and
  • introduce capabilities so that opportunities presented by current regimes impacting superannuation funds can be effectively used.

To bring in the new, keep the old

One can see from my exposé that, to introduce new SMSF trust terms to a SMSF, a trustee needs to paradoxically keep the old.

Possibly no starker reminder of this are older SMSFs where the power of vary trust terms in the original trust deed (OTD) unconditionally requires the Principal Employer (or the “Employer” or the “Founding Employer”  – descriptions of this substantially similar role from the days of employer-sponsored superannuation vary) to initiate or consent to update trust terms of the SMSF.

My exposé further explains:

  • aside from in the narrowest of exceptions, a valid deed to vary SMSF trust terms requires a rigid adherence to the requirements of the power to vary trust terms contained in the OTD of the SMSF; and
  • an update or change to the power to vary in a SMSF OTD made on a misunderstanding that the power to vary allows amendment of the power to vary itself, when it doesn’t, is ineffective.

Invalid replacement of the power to vary

Say:

On that misunderstanding by a deed provider (unfortunately I can’t say deed lawyer here because, due to regulatory failings, SMSF legal documents with these errors are often supplied by non-lawyer outfits these days), the deed provider supplies a deed to vary SMSF trust terms by which the trustee purports to replace, among other trust terms, the power to vary in the OTD which power is replaced with the deed provider’s own contemporary take on an apt power to vary.

The SMSF trustee then considers the “replaced” power to vary which no longer requires the trustee to:

  • obtain the consent of the Principal Employer to vary trust terms; or
  • to take direction on the varied trust terms from the Principal Employer;

and decides that the redundant office of Principal Employer, no longer necessary with the evolution from employer-sponsored superannuation to self managed superannuation, can cease. The Principal Employer, say a company, is then de-registered and the office of Principal Employer under the SMSF lapses.

Marooned without a Principal Employer

As the “replaced” power to vary is of no effect this leaves the trustee unable to vary the SMSF trust terms further in future where there is no Principal Employer who can act under the power to vary from the OTD of the SMSF.

A question also arises whether the deed inserting the “replaced” power to vary also fails in its entirety where it contains an invalid replacement of the power to vary in the OTD. The answer to that question may vary case to case.

One can be more certain that deeds purporting to vary SMSF trust terms non-compliant with the power to vary in the OTD unconditionally requiring the consent etc. of the Principal Employer, will fail.

Other dated requirements in the power to vary

In retrospect many of the provisos which providers of SMSF OTDs included in powers to vary in SMSF OTDs seem unwise. Examples include provisos in powers to vary in OTDs that the trustee obtain the approval of:

  • the Commissioner of Taxation; or
  • the Insurance and Superannuation Commission;

to amendment of trust terms of the SMSF. These days the Commissioner of Taxation as the regulator of SMSFs is loathe to give such approval, which is not required by legislation, and the office of Insurance and Superannuation Commissioner no longer exists.

Unfortunately some old SMSF OTDs have these kinds of provisions and some way to deal with them needs to be worked out so that amendment compliant with the power to vary can take effect.

The right “applicable law”?

Powers to vary in SMSF OTDs frequently refer to an “applicable law”, or similar, broadly being the law that applied to SMSFs when the OTD was prepared. “Applicable law”, or whatever it may be, is usually defined in the OTD separately from the power to vary. When SMSF trust terms are generally updated, years later, the varied terms are understandably predicated on a different updated “applicable law”.

In my reckoning this means a deed varying SMSF trust terms probably needs to recognise and define two kinds of “applicable law” where compliance with “applicable law” is a proviso of the power to vary in the OTD:

  • firstly the statutes, regulations etc. that are apply to the SMSF under its updated terms; and
  • secondly the older laws prescribed as “applicable law” in the OTD, which may be redundant or repealed, which the trustee of the SMSF must nevertheless comply with to effectuate an update of trust terms in accordance with the power to vary in the OTD. The power to vary should then specifically refer to this second variety of “applicable law”. Restatement of these older laws can get complicated. For instance the Occupational Superannuation Standards Act 1987, which is often justifiably included as a component of “applicable law” in older superannuation OTDs, has been progressively renamed to the Superannuation Entities (Taxation) Act 1987,  the Superannuation (Excluded Funds) Taxation Act 1987 and the Superannuation (Self Managed Superannuation Funds) Taxation Act 1987.

An alternative view is that one stipulation of “applicable law” can suffice for the other on a reasonable interpretation of the OTD a court or tribunal may accept. That may be somewhat tenable if the OTD contains a interpretative provision contemplating amendments and re-enactments of statutes.

Still it is discomforting to rely on that interpretation of “applicable law” when the OTD specifically and restrictively defines what “applicable law” is and makes compliance with such “applicable law” a proviso to the power to vary. Adoption of multiple concepts of “applicable law” being:

  • one to support updated trust terms; and
  • the other to ground variations of the deed using the power to vary;

is a safer course in a deed to vary trust terms where “applicable law” is a proviso built into the power to vary in the OTD.

Challenges!

Proactive management of a SMSF with timely and effective amendment of SMSF trust terms to support that management can be a much more demanding and technical task then many will appreciate. It may pay for a SMSF trustee to carefully consider what the SMSF power to vary requirements in the OTD are, and what service the SMSF will be getting, rather than expecting that some plain vanilla SMSF deed amendment service is going to work.

Lost SMSF trust deed replacement deeds – are they a scam?

The writer has been reading about opportunity to replace lost trust deeds with a replacement deed from professional suppliers of replacement trust deeds, in SMSF Adviser and in other places. The writer is unconvinced that these replacement deeds are going to be legally effective particularly in relation to trust deeds to which the law in New South Wales applies.

Trust deeds lost in SA – Jowill Nominees Pty Ltd v. Cooper

On 2 July 2021 SMSF Adviser suggested that the South Australian case Jowill Nominees Pty Ltd v. Cooper [2021] SASC 76 provides an insight into issues a court will consider when a trust deed has been lost. This case concerned how trust rules of a trust governed by South Australian law can be varied by the SA Supreme Court on the application of the trustee pursuant to section 59C of the Trustee Act (SA) 1936. In the writer’s view this decision says nothing about variation of trust rules beyond the confine of a SA Supreme Court section 59C application.

Section 59C differs from the Trustee Acts to similar effect in other Australian jurisdictions including section 81 of the Trustee Act (NSW) 1925.

Regularity supports that there is a SMSF where its deed is lost

Where a trust, such as a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF), has been running for some time the trustee may be able to rely on the presumption of regularity to support the operation of the trust where the trust deed is lost.

The presumption of regularity is an evidentiary rule. It can apply where there is a gap in evidence about a prior act but where later acts and circumstances indicate likelihood that the prior act was performed. So in:

  • Sutherland v. Woods [2011] NSWSC 13 the NSW Supreme Court accepted that a SMSF trust deed and resolutions of a trustee of an active SMSF were signed on balance of probability although signed versions of these documents were missing from the evidence in the case; and
  • Re Thomson [2015] VSC 370 the Victorian Supreme Court treated a SMSF as operative in conformity with trust rules in a supposed later deed of variation even though an earlier deed of variation of the trust deed of the SMSF was lost and only an unexecuted version of the later deed of variation of the trust deed was available in evidence. Probabilities, and the surrounding facts such as the ongoing acceptance of the accounts of the SMSF based on the supposed later deed of variation, indicated likelihood that these deeds of variation had been completed and executed.

It is clear from the cases where the presumption of regularity is sought to be relied on that a court or tribunal will presume to aid a trustee unable to produce a missing deed only after an exhaustive search by the trustee for it:

He cannot presume in his own favour that things are rightly done if inquiry that he ought to make would tell him that they were wrongly done. 

Lord Simons in  Morris v. Kanssen  [1946] AC 459 at p. 475

Where a trustee of a trust, that has lost the trust deed of the trust, finds itself in dispute with the Commissioner of Taxation the presumption of regularity can counter the burden of proving the establishment of the trust on the trustee imposed by Part IVC of the Taxation Administration Act (C’th) 1953. See our post The burden of proof in a tax objection

The presumption of regularity is of procedural and not of substantive aid to establishing that a trust has been operating for some time in conformity with a valid and effective trust deed containing trust terms consistent with that operation where the trust deed cannot be produced. In the absence of evidence of the precise terms of a power of amendment, which is an exceptional power that can’t be presumed, the presumption of regularity, though, gives no substantial basis for amendment of trust terms to bring the terms of a SMSF trust deed back to terms that can be produced:

94. Variation of the terms of a trust (including by way of conferral of some new power on the trustee) is not something within the ordinary and natural province of a trustee. It is not something that it is “expedient” that a trustee should do; nor, fundamentally, is it something that is done “in the management or administration of” trust property. A trustee’s function is to take the trusts as it finds them and to administer them as they stand. The trustee is not concerned to question the terms of the trust or seek to improve them. I venture to say that, even where the trust instrument itself gives the trustee a power of variation, exercise of that power is not something that occurs “in the management or administration of” trust property. It occurs in order that the scheme of fiduciary administration of the property may somehow be reshaped.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at para 94

It follows that the presumption of regularity gives the trustee latitude to administer a trust on a presumed generic basis consistent with how that trust has been administered since inception where the trustee cannot produce the trust deed containing the trust terms. That presumption, though, would not ground alteration of trust terms where terms of a power of amendment which may not exist at all, cannot be specifically drawn on from the original trust instrument and complied with.

Law on amending lost trust deeds

How terms of a trust governed by the laws of New South Wales can be varied was considered by the Court of Appeal in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367. Re Dion Investments concerned an application to the Supreme Court to vary a trust deed of a trust by modernising its provisions for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the trust. In the writer’s view it is this Court of Appeal decision (by Barrett JA, whose decision Beazley P and Gleeson JA agreed with), not Jowill Nominees Pty Ltd v. Cooper, that gives insights into issues courts and tribunals, especially those in NSW, will consider when the effectiveness of instruments to amend trust terms:

  • where the trust deed of the trust has been lost and the power of amendment is not precisely known; or
  • in other circumstances where the variation to trust terms sought is not supported by, or are beyond, the power of amendment contained in the trust instrument such as in Re Dion Investments;

is to be considered.

Alteration of a trust by its founders

In the absence of a reserved power of amendment in a trust deed, can the trustee and the founders of a trust take action by a subsequent deed to vary an original trust deed (OTD)? The NSW Court of Appeal in Re Dion Investments indicates not. Barrett JA dispels this possibility where trusts and powers of the trust have been “defined” in an OTD:

41. Where an express trust is established in that way by a deed made between a settlor and the initial trustee to which the settled property is transferred, rights of the beneficiaries arise immediately the deed takes effect. The beneficiaries are not parties to the deed and, to the extent that it embodies covenants given by its parties to one another, the beneficiaries are strangers to those covenants and cannot sue at law for breach of them. The beneficiaries’ rights are equitable rights arising from the circumstance that the trustee has accepted the office of trustee and, therefore, the duties and obligations with respect to the trust property (and otherwise) that that office carries with it.

42. Any subsequent action of the settlor and the original trustee to vary the provisions of the deed made by them will not be effective to affect either the rights and interests of the beneficiaries or the duties, obligations and powers of the trustee. Those two parties have no ability to deprive the beneficiaries of those rights and interests or to vary either the terms of the trust that the trustee is bound to execute and uphold or the powers that are available to the trustee in order to do so. The terms of the trust have, in the eyes of equity, an existence that is independent of the provisions of the deed that define them.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at paras 41 to 42

Barrett JA then illustrates the point by this example:

43. Let it be assumed that on Monday the settlor and the trustee execute and deliver the trust deed (at which point the settled sum changes hands) and that on Tuesday they execute a deed revoking the original deed and stating that their rights and obligations are as if it had never existed. Unless some power of revocation of the trusts has been reserved, the subsequent action does not change the fact that the trustee holds the settled sum for the benefit of beneficiaries named in the original deed and upon the trusts stated in that deed. The covenants of a deed may be discharged or varied by another deed between the same parties (West v Blakeway (1841) 2 Man & G 751; 133 ER 940) but the equitable rights and interests of a beneficiary cannot be taken away or varied by anyone unless the terms of the trust itself (or statute) so allow.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at para 43

Alteration of a trust by all beneficiaries of a trust

SMSF Adviser and some SMSF deed suppliers express the view that persons who can compel the due administration of the trust can complete a replacement deed that varies and replaces a lost SMSF trust deed.

This view relies on a rule of equity from Saunders v. Vautier (1841) [1841] EWHC J82, 4 Beav 115, 49 ER 282. The rule is that where all of the beneficiaries of a trust are sui juris (of adult age and under no legal disability), the beneficiaries may require the trustee to transfer the trust property to them and terminate the trust. In Re Dion Investments, Barrett JA. recognises that this rule can entitle beneficiaries relying on the rule to require that the trustee hold the trust property on varied trusts:

but, if they do so require, the situation may in truth be one of resettlement upon new trusts rather than variation of the pre-existing trusts (and the trustee may not be compellable to accept and perform those new trusts: see CPT Custodian Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue [2005] HCA 53; 224 CLR 98 at [44]).

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at para 46

For a trust that is a SMSF impediments to and implications of variation by the force of using the rule from Saunders v. Vautier are:

  • relatives and other dependants beyond the members of a SMSF, being all of the beneficiaries, must consent to using the rule from Saunders v. Vautier. Children, and others lacking legal capacity, who cannot consent to using the rule, are beneficiaries who can complicate use of the rule to vary a SMSF trust: Kafataris v. Deputy Commissioner of Taxation [2008] FCA 1454; and
  • if the beneficiaries do apply the rule from Saunders v. Vautier, resettlement of a SMSF trust on taking that action gives rise to:
    • CGT event E1 or E2 for each of the CGT assets of the SMSF under Part 3-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. It follows that action taken by SMSF beneficiaries in reliance on the rule from Saunders v. Vautier will have comparable capital gains tax consequences to a transfer of all members’ benefits to a newly established SMSF; and
    • prospect that a new ABN and election to become a regulated superannuation fund for a new resettled SMSF will by required by the regulator.

Much reliance is placed by SMSF Adviser and by deed suppliers’ websites promoting replacement deed services on Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd. [2004] NSWSC 161. In Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd. . Hamilton J of the NSW Supreme Court, as a matter of expediency, allowed beneficiaries to vary a SMSF trust deed beyond limitations in the amendment power in the trust deed utilising the rule in Saunders v. Vautier on this basis:

20. Since it is appropriate that the trustee act upon the informed consent of beneficiaries who are sui juris and unnecessary applications to the Court for empowerment are not to be encouraged, I propose to adopt the course followed by Baragwanath J in the New Zealand case. I do not propose to make an order under s 81 of the TA empowering the making of the amendment, although I have expressed the view that the Court has power to do so and would be prepared to do so if it were necessary. Rather, I shall make an appropriate declaratory order to the effect that it is expedient that the proposed deed of amendment be entered into and that it will be appropriate for the trustee to act in accordance with it.

Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd. [2004] NSWSC 161 at para. 20

Update of trust terms by a court

The Court of Appeal in Re Dion Investments agreed with Young AJ, the primary judge, that post-1997 court decisions, including Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd., which relied on a misunderstanding of the extent of court power to vary trust deeds, particularly in relation to the statutory powers of a court to alter the terms of the trust viz. the aforementioned section 81 in NSW and section 59C in SA, which misunderstanding originated from this obiter dicta of Baragwanath J in Re Philips New Zealand Ltd [1997] 1 NZLR 93

The Court will not willingly construe a deed so as to stultify the ability of trustees, having proper consents, to amend a deed to bring it into line with changing conditions.

Re Philips New Zealand Ltd [1997] 1 NZLR 93 at page 99

were not correctly decided. Barrett JA said:

100. For these reasons, I share the opinion of the primary judge that the post-1997 decisions that have proceeded on the basis that variation of the terms of a trust is, of itself, a “transaction” within the contemplation of s 81(1) rest on an unsound foundation. The court is not empowered by the section to grant power to the trustee to amend the trust instrument or the terms of the trust. It may only grant specific powers related to the management and administration of the trust property, being powers that co-exist with (and, to the extent of any inconsistency, override) those conferred by the trust instrument or by law.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at para 100

In particular. the decision in Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd. and the other post-1997 decisions referred to in Re Dion Investments cannot be reconciled with the Court of Appeal decision in Re Dion Investments where Barrett JA found:

96. In such cases, however, the creation of what is, in terms, a power of the trustee to amend the trust instrument is a superfluous and meaningless step. When the court, acting under s 81(1), confers on a trustee power to undertake a particular dealing (or dealings of a particular kind), “it must be taken to have done it as though the power which is being put into operation had been inserted in the trust instrument as an overriding power”: Re Mair [1935] Ch 562 at 565 per Farwell J. The substantive power that the court gives comes into existence by virtue of the court’s order. It does not have its source in the terms of the trust. There is no addition to the content of the trust instrument. That content is supplemented and overridden “as though” some addition had been made to it. The terms of the trust are reshaped accordingly.

97. Conferral of specific new powers pursuant to s 81(1) should not be by way of purported grant of authority to amend the trust instrument so that it provides for the new powers. Rather, the court’s order should directly confer (and be the sole and direct source of) the powers which then supplement and, as necessary, override the content of the trust instrument. And, of course, the only specific powers that can be conferred in that direct way are those that fall within the s 81(1) description concerned with management and administration of trust property.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at paras 96-97

A variation relying on a power of amendment in trust terms is not a variation of a trust deed but a variation of trust terms contained in a trust deed. Barrett JA explained this in Re Dion Investments:

44. It is, of course, commonplace to speak of the variation of a trust instrument as such when referring to what is, in truth, variation of the terms upon which trust property is held under the trusts created or evidenced by the instrument. A provision of a trust instrument that lays down procedures by which it may be varied is, of its nature, concerned with variation of the terms of the trust, not variation of the content of the instrument, although the fact that it is the instrument that sets out the terms of the trust does, in an imprecise way, make it sensible to speak of amendment of the instrument when the reference is in truth to amendment of the terms of the trust.

45. Where the trust instrument contains a provision allowing variation by a particular process, the situation is one in which the settlor, in declaring the trust and defining its terms, has specified that those terms are not immutable and that the original terms will be superseded by varied terms if the specified process of variation (entailing, in concept, a power of appointment or a power of revocation or both) is undertaken. The varied terms are in that way traceable to the settlor’s intention as communicated to the original trustee.

Barrett JA in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. [2014] NSWCA 367 at paras 44-45

Significance of the power of amendment as expressed in an OTD

A power of amendment of a SMSF, or any other express trust, is a precise reflection of the settlor’s (founder’s) intention of conditions for amendment of the trust communicated in the trust terms in the OTD and supplies the only lawful way trust rules in a trust deed, otherwise immutable, can be amended aside from narrow exceptions:

  • where beneficiaries can invoke the rule in Saunders v. Vautier and, by doing so, resettle the SMSF on a new trust; or
  • by court order to vary trust terms or, in NSW, to allow dealings of a particular kind despite trust terms, in accordance with a state or territory Trustee Acts such as section 59C of the Trustee Act (SA) 1936 and section 81 of the Trustee Act (NSW) 1925;

as considered above.

Amendment practice

It follows that a power of amendment in an OTD of a trust:

  • needs to remain, as it was in the OTD, as a term of the trust unless the power of amendment itself can be amended, should that be possible and has so been amended; and
  • is best extracted, repeated and given prominence in a deed of variation which replaces the other trust terms of a trust so that trust terms are clear and traceable on an ongoing basis.

Extraction and repeat of a reserved power of amendment from an OTD is not always just a matter of extracting the paragraph or paragraphs in the OTD containing the power of amendment. In the writer’s experience powers of amendment in older SMSF OTDs are frequently premised on laws and practices that prevailed when the superannuation trust was established e.g. such as in the former Occupational Superannuation Standards Act (C’th) 1987 and practices relating to now redundant regimes of employer sponsored superannuation. To remain traceable to the settlor’s (founder’s) intention as communicated to the original trustee, conditions specified for amendment in a power of amendment based on laws and practices, even where those laws and practices have evolved or become redundant since establishment of the trust; need to be complied with and reflected cogently in the extraction and repeat of the power of amendment in a deed of variation, within reason, if the power of amendment is to remain as a trust term in an exercisable form in the deed of variation.

When can a power of amendment in an OTD itself be amended?

Amendment of the power of amendment itself may be possible but unlikely if the amendment provision in the OTD itself does not expressly permit it. In Jenkins v. Ellett [2007] QSC 154, Douglas J. stated:

The scope of powers of amendment of a trust deed is discussed in an illuminating fashion in Thomas on Powers (1st ed., 1998) at pp. 585-586, paras 14-31 to 14-32 in these terms:

“In all cases, the scope of the relevant power is determined by the construction of the words in which it is couched, in accordance with the surrounding context and also of such extrinsic evidence (if any) as may be properly admissible. A power of amendment or variation in a trust instrument ought not to be construed in a narrow or unreal way. It will have been created in order to provide flexibility, whether in relation to specific matters or more generally. Such a power ought, therefore, to be construed liberally so as to permit any amendment which is not prohibited by an express direction to the contrary or by some necessary implication, provided always that any such amendment does not derogate from the fundamental purposes for which the power was created ….It does not follow, of course, that the power of amendment itself can be amended in this way. Indeed, it is probably the case that there is an implied (albeit rebuttable) presumption, in the absence of an express direction to that effect, that a power of amendment (like any other kind of power) cannot be used to extend its own scope or amend its own terms. Moreover, a power of amendment is not likely to be held to extend to varying the trust in a way which would destroy its ‘substratum’. The underlying purpose for the furtherance of which the power was initially created or conferred will obviously be paramount.”

Jenkins v. Ellett [2007] QSC 154 Douglas J. at paragraph 15

One can see the parity between what was said in Jenkins v. Ellett and in Thomas on Powers and in paragraph 94 in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd., as set out above, about a trustee’s proper role not being concerned to question or improve trust terms. See the writer’s article Redoing the deed https://wp.me/P6T4vg-3x#rtd

Update of the power of amendment?

The writer sees confusion among SMSF deed suppliers over the difference between the OTD and the trust terms in the OTD and who consequently fall into the trap of treating the power to amend as updatable by the same power to amend.

So instead of relocating the power of amendment in the OTD to updated trust terms, suppliers simply replace that power with their own take on an apt power of amendment departing from Barrett JA’s dictum that it is not for the trustee, far less a variation deed supplier, to “question the terms of the trust or seek to improve them”. Following Re Dion Investments and Jenkins v. Ellett a replacement of a power of amendment that is not amendable is a deviation from the power of amendment prone to be:

  • beyond the power of:
    • the parties entrusted with the power of amendment; and
    • a court, even if an order of the court for the replacement power had been sought; and
  • thus void.

Later deeds of variation of SMSFs based on a deviation

As in Re Thomson trust deeds of SMSFs will likely be varied more than once so that trust terms (governing rules) can better reflect evolving law and practice with SMSFs. An unlawful replacement of a power of amendment which deviates from the power of amendment in the OTD of a SMSF lays a trap when a trustee seeks to make a further amendment to the trust terms of the SMSF: Based on the above authorities a further deed of variation reliant on the “updated” power of amendment in an earlier deed of variation, rather than the power of variation in the even earlier OTD of the SMSF, will fail and be void unless the updated power of amendment in the earlier deed of variation is in conformity with the power of amendment in the OTD.

So are replacement SMSF trust deeds a scam?

The writer suspects many SMSF deed suppliers who supply replacement SMSF deeds don’t understand or follow the implications of Re Dion Investments. As a considered NSW Court of Appeal decision Re Dion Investments is binding legal precedent that rejects the authority of first instance NSW Supreme Court decisions referred to and discussed by the Court of Appeal, including Re Bowmil Nominees Pty. Ltd., that rest on an “unsound foundation” .

It is unfortunate that these cases are still being used as spurious authority on the websites of SMSF deed suppliers in support of claims that lost SMSF deed replacement deeds are of greater efficacy as variations of a trust deed than courts and tribunals, especially NSW courts, will be prepared to accept or order following Re Dion Investments. The writer wouldn’t say these claims are a scam necessarily because, as this post shows, the present state of law is complicated, difficult and more restrictive than understood by courts in the post-1997 cases referred to in Re Dion Investments.

The current law appears to be that if a trustee wants to vary a SMSF trust deed, which is “not something within the ordinary and natural province of a trustee” especially in NSW, the parties given power to amend under a power of amendment must locate, have and rely on that power in or derived from the OTD to successfully amend terms of a SMSF trust without resettling it.

Other solutions, aside from supreme court applications allowed under:

  • section 81 of the Trustee Act (NSW) 1925, as pursued in Re Dion Investments
  • section 59C of the Trustee Act (SA) 1936, as pursued in Jowill Nominees Pty Ltd v. Cooper; or
  • comparable legislation in other Australian states and territories;

which are expensive litigation, are unlikely to be legally effective.

It follows that every effort should be made to find trust terms in an OTD so that the power of amendment in the deed will be carefully complied with when an amendment of a trust deed is to be undertaken. That includes where there have been earlier deeds of variation of the trust terms of a SMSF whose validity also rests on, and must be derived from the reserved amendment power defined in the OTD.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author acknowledges the articles:

  • A matter of trusts – Presumption of regularity to the rescue? Milton Louca and Phil Broderick, Taxation in Australia March 2018 at page 436
  • The powers of a Court to vary the terms of a trust A consideration of in Re Dion Investments Pty. Ltd. (2014) 87 NSWLR 753 A paper presented to the Society of Trust and Estates Practitioners – NSW Branch Wednesday 21 October 2015 by Denis Barlin of counsel (who appeared as counsel for the section 81 applicant in the case)

that were useful in preparing this post and which contain greater detail on the issues discussed. The author also expresses his gratitude that these articles have been made available openly online.

Uneven sharing of the partnership pie – OK for tax?

pie

Anecdotally one hears that many partners of business partnerships, especially husband and wife partnerships, don’t bother with a deed or agreement to record their partnership. These partnerships run some risk that the Commissioner of Taxation won’t accept that a partnership exists and then the onus of proof will be on the “partners” to show that the Commissioner is wrong and that the partnership between them is real.

Demonstrating the partnership

The burden of proof (see our blog post at https://wp.me/p6T4vg-W ) then moves on to the taxpayers asserting their partnership to prove their contribution and involvement in a partnership and their conduct of a business as a partnership. If the supposed partners don’t meet this onus on them, the partnership fails for tax.

The Commissioner usually won’t dismiss a business partnership asserted in a partnership income tax return without a reason for doing so. But lack of a written partnership agreement can be a major driver in cases where the Commissioner does do that.

Income tax effective features of a partnerships accepted for tax

A partner in a tax partnership can broadly offset a loss from the partnership against non-partnership income of the partner for income tax though that capability is now constrained by the non-commercial loss rules in Division 35 of the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997 which apply to both individuals and partnerships.

The ability of partners to share income and losses from a partnership unevenly is both a commercially useful flexibility and a tax effective feature of a partnership.

Uneven shares of tax partnership income and losses

Section 92 of the ITAA 1936 brings to tax a partner’s share of their “individual interest” in the net income of the partnership in an income year. If the agreed split of partnership income and losses between two partners of a partnership is say 75%/25% by agreement between the partners then this can be thus accepted for tax, all else being in order.

In order?

State and Territory partnership legislation provides that:

all partners share equally in the capital and profits of the business, and must contribute equally towards the losses, whether of capital or otherwise, sustained by the partnership

from paragraph 24 of Taxation Ruling TR 2005/7 [footnoting Section 24(I) of the Partnership Act 1892 (NSW); section 28(1) of the Partnership Act 1958 (Vic); section 27(1) of the Partnership Act 1891 (Qld); section 24(I) of the Partnership Act 1891 (SA); section 34(1) of the Partnership Act 1895 (WA); section 29(a) of the Partnership Act 1891 (Tas); section 29(1) of the Partnership Act 1963 (ACT) ]

To achieve an unequal split of income or losses between the partners, the partners must produce an agreement contracting out of this statutory prescribed equal share which applies effectively by default. An obvious instance where this is necessary is when partners have made unequal capital contributions to the partnership and seek to adjust quantum rights to:

  • partnership income and losses; and
  • returns of partnership capital;

accordingly.

Where partners pursuing unequal partnership income/loss entitlements seek:

  • to prove those entitlements to the Commissioner; or
  • to avoid disagreement and dispute with other partners about their share of partnership income or losses;

a written form of the deal setting out the terms of the partnership is essential.

Partner salary

Taxation Ruling TR 2005/7 concerns the taxation implications of ‘partnership salary’. The ruling explains:

 A ‘partnership salary’ is not truly a salary, nor is it an expense of the partnership, but instead is a distribution of partnership profits to the recipient partner. Thus, the payment of a ‘partnership salary’ to a partner, whether or not for personal services provided by the partner, is not taken into account as an allowable deduction under section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997…

Paragraph 7 of TR 2005/7

At paragraph 10 of TR 2005/7 the Commissioner further states that, to be effective for tax purposes, an agreement to pay a partnership salary must be entered into before the end of the income year in which a claimed partnership salary is drawn.

TR 2005/7 has a number of useful examples of how accounting for a partnership salary can be done in a way that will be acceptable for tax by the Commissioner.

Fights with other partners over entitlements

A partner in receipt of a partnership salary for personal services should thus be mindful that a partnership deed may or will be vital to showing he or she received a partnership salary, as agreed, for those services in fact and that amounts received by the partners were additional, as salary, to and not an advance or drawings of the partner’s statutory equal share of income.

Other problems with partnerships that are not in order for tax

Not partnership salary issues and so not addressed in TR 2005/7 are:

  • where the Commissioner may adjust partnership income of a partner where a partner does not have real or effective control of or of disposal of partnership income using the uncontrolled partnership income provision in section 94 of the ITAA 1936; and
  • where the Commissioner asserts a partnership is a sham: that is, the partnership is without legal effect despite documentation, such as an purported agreement, of it.

Conclusions

It is an imperative that partnerships where a partner or partners:

  • are to receive a partnership salary; or
  • are to participate unequally in income and losses with the other partners for any other reason, including due to disparity in contributions of capital to the partnership of to facilitate partnership salaries;

document the terms of the partnership. A partnership deed or agreement is usually inexpensive and a small price to protect against the above calamities. It is especially important to complete a deed or agreement where there is possibility of dispute between partners as to what their shares of partnership income and losses are to be.

A partnership deed also shows the Commissioner that the partnership is most likely a real structure carrying on a business and that the shares of income and losses partners say they share in and take from the partnership matches what the partners believe them to be and will so return in their partnership income tax returns.

Woes of a beneficiary of a discretionary trust in getting a tax deduction for interest: Chadbourne v. C of T.

CarWoes

In the recent Administrative Appeals Tribunal case Chadbourne and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation) [2020] AATA 2441 (10 July 2020) the AAT confirmed the disallowance of tax deductions to Mr. D. Chadbourne (the Applicant).

The Applicant was a beneficiary of the D & M Chadbourne Family Trust (DMCFT) and the Applicant was denied deductions for:

  • interest on money borrowed by the Applicant to fund the acquisition of real estate and shares by the DMCFT; and
  • other expenses incurred by the Applicant expended;

so the DMCFT could earn income.

The discretionary trust

The DMCFT was a discretionary trust. In Chadbourne Deputy President Britten-Jones usefully described a discretionary trust:

I note that the meaning of the term ‘discretionary trust’ is disclosed by a consideration of usage rather than doctrine, and the usage is descriptive rather than normative. It is used to identify a species of express trust, one where the entitlement of beneficiaries to income, or to corpus, or both, is not immediately ascertainable; rather, the beneficiaries are selected from a nominated class by the trustee or some other person and this power (which may be a special or hybrid power) may be exercisable once or from time to time.

Chadbourne at paragraph 8

The mere expectancy of a beneficiary of a discretionary trust

Because the beneficiaries of a discretionary trust are not immediately ascertainable and are to be selected, a prospective beneficiary only has an expectancy of earning trust income unless and until the beneficiary is so selected by the trustee to take income:

Unless and until the Trustee of the discretionary trust exercises the discretion to distribute a share of the income of the trust estate to the applicant, the applicant’s interest in the income of the discretionary trust is a mere expectancy. It is neither vested in interest nor vested in possession, and the applicant has no right to demand and receive payment of it.

Chadbourne at paragraph 57

or in the case of a beneficiary who takes in default of exercise of discretion they have no more than a similar expectancy.

The Applicant was a beneficiary of the DMCFT with an expectancy interest.

The available tax deduction

The Applicant could not satisfy the first limb of the general deduction provision, now in the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997, which allows an income tax deduction for a loss or outgoing to the extent:

it is incurred in gaining or producing your assessable income 

paragraph 8-1(1)(a) of the ITAA 1997 (emphasis added)

In Chadbourne the Applicant’s expenditure was incurred to gain or produce income for the trustee of the DMCFT, a separate legal entity. Applying authority including Federal Commissioner of Taxation v Munro (1926) 38 CLR 153, Antonopoulos and FCT [2011] AATA 431; 84 ATR 311, Case M36 (1980) 80 ATC 280,  Commissioner of Taxation v Roberts and Smith (1992) 37 FCR 246, where Hill J. referred to Ure v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1981) 50 FLR 219, Fletcher v Commissioner of Taxation (1991) 173 CLR 1 and other cases, the AAT required a nexus between loss or outgoings of the Applicant and the assessable income of the Applicant; not the DMCFT. Although the Applicant stood to earn income indirectly as the likely beneficiary of the DMCFT the AAT found:

The Trust is a discretionary trust the terms of which require the Trustee to exercise a discretion as to whom a distribution of net income is to be made.  It is an inherent requirement of the exercise of that discretion that it be given real and genuine consideration. There must be ‘the exercise of an active discretion’. There were numerous beneficiaries in the Trust.  There was no certainty provided by the terms of the Trust that the Trustee would exercise its discretionary power of appointment in favour of the applicant.

Chadbourne at paragraph 53

and the Applicant thus had not incurred the expenditure in gaining or producing the assessable income of the Applicant.

Why did the Applicant run the AAT appeal?

The Applicant in Chadbourne was self-represented. With the benefit of professional advice or assistance the Applicant may have:

  • more readily foreseen the outcome of his appeal to the AAT which, in the light of the authority applied by Deputy President Britten-Jones, could be seen as inevitable; or
  • moreover, arranged the loan to achieve the required section 8-1 nexus between the outgoings and the assessable income of a taxpayer.

Safer alternative 1 – trustee loan

The most obvious alternative would have been for the trustee of the trust to have been the borrower and to have directly incurred the relevant expenses though those actions would have been different commercial arrangements to those that were done.

These actions may have been more complicated and expensive to arrange: not the least because the financier may have required the Applicant to personally guarantee repayment of the loan by the trustee of the trust which was a corporate trustee with limited liability. Nonetheless these precautions would have ensured section 8-1 deductions were available to the trustee of the trust.

(Somewhat) safer alternative 2 – on-loan to the trustee

The other and perhaps commercially easier alternative would have been an on-loan of the borrowed funds by the Applicant to the trust.

The Applicant in Chadbourne may have belatedly considered an on-loan solution. At paragraph 11 of the AAT decision it was observed that the Applicant had abandoned a contention that there was a “written funding agreement” between the Applicant and the trustee of the DMCFT which the Commissioner had suggested was an invention to assist the Applicant in the appeal.

In the event of a genuine on-loan the trustee of the trust would hold the borrowed funds as loan funds with a clarity as to whom interest and principal is to be repaid rather than as a capital contribution or gift to the trust without that clarity.

On-loan – interest free

Clearly the on-loan by the Applicant to the trustee of the trust should not be interest free as the Applicant then faces the Chadbourne problem of having no assessable income with which to justify a section 8-1 deduction. In the words of Taxation Determination TD 2018/9 Income tax: deductibility of interest expenses incurred by a beneficiary of a discretionary trust on borrowings on-lent interest-free to the trustee:

A beneficiary of a discretionary trust who borrows money, and on-lends all or part of that money to the trustee of the discretionary trust interest-free, is usually not entitled to a deduction for any interest expenditure incurred by the beneficiary in relation to the borrowed money on-lent to the trustee under section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997)…  

TD 2018/9 – paragraph 1

On-loan – at low interest

An on-loan at low interest was arranged in Ure v. Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1981) 11 ATR 484. In Ure the borrower borrowed funds at up to 12.5% p.a. interest and on-lent the funds to his wife and his discretionary trust at 1% p.a. The Full Federal Court found that the deduction Mr. Ure could claim under the first limb of the general deduction provision, sub-section 51(1) of the ITAA 1936, was limited to the 1% p.a. by which the interest income earned by Mr. Ure from his on-loan was confined.

On loan – at equivalent interest

It thus follows from TD 2018/9, Ure and Chadbourne that, to achieve deductibility in full for interest on funds borrowed and on-lent to a related discretionary trust, the interest earned by the beneficiary/on-lender on the on-loan should be the interest payable by the on-lender on the loan from the financier. This should leave the beneficiary/borrower in a tax neutral position on his or her loan on-loaned with assessable interest earned under the on-loan equalling deductible interest paid on the loan.

Related loan issues

As the on-loan is a related loan there are further considerations which will attract the scrutiny of the Commissioner:

A related on-loan should ideally be carefully documented and it should be clarified that the beneficiary/on-lender has an indefeasible right to the interest even though the on-lender is a related party of the borrower. It is also important that commitments in the on-loan agreement are met and generally interest due to the beneficiary/on-lender shouldn’t be capitalised and, especially, shouldn’t be aggregated with unpaid present entitlements due to the beneficiary.

The Commissioner could take these positions:

  • that the on-loan with interest is inadequately documented and can’t be proved so accounting entries capitalising interest shouldn’t be considered conclusive; or
  • the on-loan may be documented but it is a sham and the failure of the trust to pay interest when due shows this.

See my blog post at this site “Only a loan? Impugnable loans, proving them for tax and shams” https://wp.me/p6T4vg-8a which shows the fallibility of related party loans when these questions are contested with the Commissioner.

Woes with hybrid trusts

A hybrid trust, also a descriptive rather than a normative structure, can also fit the Deputy President Britten-Jones formulation of a discretionary trust where the entitlement of beneficiaries of the hybrid trust to income is not immediately ascertainable and is subject to the exercise of a discretion. It has been recognised,  including in the Commissioner’s Taxpayer Alert TA 2008/3 Uncommercial use of certain trusts that the considerations of the AAT in Chadbourne can similarly apply to deny a section 8-1 deduction to the holder of an interest in a hybrid trust who incurs expenditure to earn income through a hybrid trust structure.

In passing I note my wariness of hybrid trusts which are typically aggressive and sometimes tax abusive arrangements. The Commissioner’s Tax Alerts are particularly directed against tax aggressive activity.

That said, the trust in the case of Forrest v Commissioner of Taxation [2010] FCAFC 6, which was referred to in a citation (sic.) in Chadbourne, appears to have been an instance of a hybrid trust where entitlement of unit holders to ordinary income was ascertainable and not subject to a discretion. On appeal to the Full Federal Court, the unit holders in Forrest could establish a nexus between borrowing expenditure incurred and assessable income.

Australian non-fixed trust liable for CGT on non-TAP gains given to a foreign resident: Peter Greensill Family Co Pty Ltd

BigBen

A mirror of the general principle of source and residence taxation broadly setting the parameters of international taxation, and reflected in Australia’s income tax law, is that income of a foreign resident not from sources in the state is not taxable in the state (in this post called the Mirror Principle). In Australia:

  • interests in real property in Australia and related interests; and
  • interests in assets used in business in permanent establishments in Australia:

are designated “Taxable Australian Property” (TAP) (see Division 855 of the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997). TAP is used in Australian income tax law to apply the Mirror Principle.

Foreign resident capital gains from non-TAP disregarded

Property which is not TAP, that is, property not taken to be connected to Australia for income tax purposes in the hands of foreign residents includes shares and securities as opposed to property interests in or related to Australian land or of permanent establishments carrying on enterprises in Australia which are TAP.

Capital gains made by foreign residents from non-TAP assets are disregarded for tax purposes: section 855-10.

Trouble pinpointing trusts as foreign or not

Trusts are elusive and create enormous difficulties in the international tax system see Trusts – Weapons of Mass Injustice. Trusts can detach beneficiaries who benefit from property who may be in one state from:

  • the trustee of the trust, in whose name the property is held, who may be in another state; and
  • the activities of trust which may be in yet another state.

Apt taxation of those activities in line with Mirror Principle thus poses a significant challenge to governments. States are justified imposing laws to counter offshoring with trusts to ensure the integrity of their tax systems.

Some states don’t recognise trusts.

In Australia trusts are mainstream. Some types of trusts are considered tax benign and conducive to legitimate business, investment and prudential activity. Fixed trusts are often treated transparently for Australian income tax purposes so that a fixed trust interest holder is:

  • taxed similarly to a regular taxpayer or investor; and
  • no worse off, tax wise, than a taxpayer or investor who owns the property outright rather than by way of a trust beneficial interest.

So, consistent with the Mirror Principle that a foreign resident owner of non-TAP who makes a gain on the non-TAP shouldn’t be taxable on the gain, a foreign resident beneficiary (FRB) of a fixed trust can disregard a capital gain made in relation to their interest in a fixed trust: section 855-40.

Peter Greensill Family Co Pty Ltd (trustee) v Commissioner of Taxation

In the Federal Court case Peter Greensill Family Co Pty Ltd (trustee) v Commissioner of Taxation [2020] FCA 559 this week the issue arose whether an Australian resident family discretionary trust – a non-fixed trust, was entitled to rely on section 855-10 and the Mirror Principle to disregard capital gains distributed to a FRB, a beneficiary based in London, of the trust from realisation by the trust of shares in a private company, GCPL, which were non-TAP of the trust.

Detachment of capital gains from the workings of trust CGT tax rules

The capital gains of a trustee are distant from the capital gains of a beneficiary under the ITAA 1936 and the ITAA 1997. Transparent treatment or look through to the capital gains of the trustee as capital gains of the beneficiary/ies became even more remote following changes to Sub-division 115-C of the ITAA 1997 including the introduction of Division 6E of Part III of the ITAA 1936.

These changes brought in distinct treatment of capital gains and franked distributions of a trust from other trust income following the High Court decision in Commissioner of Taxation v Bamford [2010] HCA 10 and the clarification of taxation of trust income in that case.

Legislation unsupportive of transparent treatment

In Greensill Thawley J. analysed the provisions in Sub-division 115-C and Division 6E to deconstruct the applicant’s case to disregard capital gains using Division 855. 

Section 855-40 specifically allows a FRB of a fixed trust to disregard non-TAP capital gains. The absence of an equivalent exemption for FRBs of non-fixed trusts is telling unless section 855-40 is otiose or represents an abundance of caution. Thawley J. did not follow that line. As the applicant in Greensill could not disregard the capital gains using section 855-40 in the case of non-fixed trust, or section 855-10, the capital gains were taxable in Australia.

Unless there is an appeal to the Full Federal Court the Commissioner can finalise his draft taxation determination TD 2019/D6 Income tax: does Subdivision 855-A (or subsection 768-915(1)) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 disregard a capital gain that a foreign resident (or temporary resident) beneficiary of a resident non-fixed trust makes because of subsection 115-215(3)? as the Federal Court has accepted the view in it.

Changing the trustee of a trust – some elements for success

It is sometimes wrongly assumed that a minute of the current trustee is sufficient to change the trustee of:

  • a family discretionary trust (FDT); or
  • a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) (which must be a trust with a trustee too – see sub-section 19(2) of the Superannuation Industry (Superannuation) Act (C’th) 1993 (SIS Act));

and that a change of trustee will have no serious tax consequences. The second proposition is more likely to be true, but not always.

FDTs and SMSFs invariably commence with a deed which contains the terms (the trust terms or governing rules – TTOGRs) on which the trust commences. That, in itself, is a reason why I contended in 2009 in Redoing the deed that an instrument or resolution less than a deed to change the trustee is prone to be ineffective even where change by less than or other than a deed is stated to be permitted by the TTOGRs in the trust deed.

Changing trustee relying on ability to change in the trust deed

It is thus to the trust deed that one needs to look to find:

  1. whether there is a power in the TTOGRs to appoint a new trustee or to otherwise change the trustee; and
  2. if, so, what the procedure or formalities are for doing so.

Changing trustee relying on the Trustee Acts

If ability to change trustee is not present, or is derelict, in the TTOGRs then the Trustee Acts in states (and territories) provide options for appointing a new or additional trustee which vary state to state.

Trustee Act – New South Wales

In New South Wales: section 6 of the Trustee Act (NSW) 1925 allows a person nominated for the purpose of appointing trustees in the TTOGRs, a surviving trustee or a continuing trustee to appoint a new trustee in certain specified situations such as where a trustee:

  • has died;
  • is incapable of acting as trustee; or
  • is absent for a specified period out of the state.

However an appointment of a new trustee in these situations must be effected by registered deed: sub-section 6(1) That is the deed of appointment must be registered with the general registry kept by the NSW Registrar-General, which is publicly searchable, and the applicable fee to so register the deed must be paid to NSW Land Registry Services for the appointment to take effect.

It is apparent from sub-section 6(13) that registration of a deed of appointment is not required where ability to appoint a new trustee is in the TTOGRs where the TTOGRs express a contrary intention; that is: where the TTOGRs expressly and effectively allow an appointment to be effected without a registered deed.

Trustee Act – Victoria

In Victoria there is a comparable capability for a person nominated for the purpose of appointing trustees in the TTOGRs, a surviving trustee or a continuing trustee to appoint a new trustee in writing in certain specified situations such as where a trustee:

  • has died;
  • is incapable of acting as trustee; or
  • is absent for a specified period out of the state;

under section 41 of the Trustee Act (Vic.) 1958. However this Victorian law does not impose any requirement that the required instrument of appointment in writing must be registered.

Changing trustee by obtaining a court order

The supreme courts of the states and territories are also given a residual statutory capability to appoint trustees under the respective Trustee Acts. However applying to a supreme court for an order to change a trustee of a FDT or a SMSF with sufficient supporting grounds is an option of last resort given likely significant costs and uncertainties of obtaining the order.

Changing trustee by deed

The TTOGRs in a trust deed of a FDT or a SMSF will frequently require that an appointment of a new trustee may or must be effected by a deed. It is desirable that it should do so to ensure the appointment of a new trustee does not become of a matter of uncertainty and difficulty for the reasons I have described in Redoing the deed.

Tax consequences of a change of trustee

As a change of trustee without more generally does not change beneficial entitlements under a trust, the tax consequences are usually benign:

For capital gains tax (CGT), assurance that changing trustee does not give rise to a CGT event for all of the CGT assets held in a trust is diffuse under the Income Tax Assessment Act (C’th) (ITAA) 1997:

Sub-section 104-10(2) concerning CGT event A1 states:

(2) You dispose of a * CGT asset if a change of ownership occurs from you to another entity, whether because of some act or event or by operation of law. However, a change of ownership does not occur if you stop being the legal owner of the asset but continue to be its beneficial owner.

Note: A change in the trustee of a trust does not constitute a change in the entity that is the trustee of the trust (see subsection 960-100(2)). This means that CGT event A1 will not happen merely because of a change in the trustee.

Sub-section 960-100(2) with the Notes below it in fact say:

(2) The trustee of a trust, of a superannuation fund or of an approved deposit fund is taken to be an entity consisting of the person who is the trustee, or the persons who are the trustees, at any given time.

Note 1: This is because a right or obligation cannot be conferred or imposed on an entity that is not a legal person.

Note 2: The entity that is the trustee of a trust or fund does not change merely because of a change in the person who is the trustee of the trust or fund, or persons who are the trustees of the trust or fund.

Similarly sections 104-55 and 104-60 of the ITAA 1997 which concern:

• Creating a trust over a CGT asset: CGT event E1

• Transferring a CGT asset to a trust: CGT event E2

each restate the above Note: viz.

Note: A change in the trustee of a trust does not constitute a change in the entity that is the trustee of the trust (see subsection 960-100(2)). This means that CGT event E… will not happen merely because of a change in the trustee.

Stamp duty

A change of trustee can have stamp duty consequences where the trust holds dutiable property such as real estate.

Duty – NSW

Concessional stamp duty on the transfer of the dutiable property of the trust to the new trustee can be denied in NSW to a FDT unless the trust deed of the trust limits who can be a beneficiary, for anti-avoidance reasons: see sub-section 54(3) of the Duties Act (NSW) 1997.

Indeed Revenue NSW withholds the requisite satisfaction in sub-section 54(3) unless the TTOGRs provide or have been varied in such a way so that an appointed new trustee or a continuing trustee irrevocably cannot participate as a beneficiary of the trust. Contentiously satisfaction is withheld by Revenue NSW unless a variation to a FDT to so limit the beneficiaries is “irrevocable“ : see paragraph 6 of Revenue Ruling DUT 037, even though that variation may not be plausible or permissible under the TTOGRs of the FDT.

This hard line is taken by Revenue NSW to defeat schemes where someone, who might otherwise be a purchaser of dutiable property who would pay full duty on purchase of the property from the trust, becomes both a trustee and beneficiary able to control and beneficially own the property who is thus able to contrive liability only for concessional duty and avoid full duty,

Duty – Victoria

Although the Duties Act (Vic.) 2000 contains anti-avoidance provisions addressed at this kind of anti-avoidance arrangement, there is no comparable hard line to that in NSW in sub-section 33(3) of the Duties Act (Vic.) 2000 so that the transfer of dutiable property, including real estate, on changing trustee is more readily exempt from stamp duty.

Other requirements

A prominent requirement on changing trustee of a SMSF is notification to the Australian Taxation Office, as the regulator of SMSFs, within twenty-eight days of the change: see Changes to your SMSF at the ATO website.

Where changing trustee involves a corporate trustee then there may also be an obligation to inform the Australian Securities and Investments Commission of changes to details of directors of the corporate trustee, if any. There may be further matters to be addressed if any new or continuing directors are or will become non-residents of Australia and, with SMSFs, the general requirement in section 17A of the SIS Act that the parity between members of the fund on the one hand and trustees, or directors of the corporate trustee on the other, needs to borne in mind and, if need be, addressed.

Aggregating for dual $6m MNAV tests following 2018 small business CGT concession integrity changes – with the aid of chess!

ChessPieces

Those seeking the small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions in the 2018 and later income years need to be wary of modified small business CGT concession integrity rules which apply from 8 February 2018 by virtue of Schedule 2 of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2018 (TIOMA).

The small business CGT concessions in Division 152 of the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997 may look straight forward but there are subtle complications within the misnamed “basic” conditions for the relief which can be matrixlike. The small business CGT concessions are generous so perhaps it is right that rules to protect their integrity, as ramped up by the TIOMA, are more complicated than the rules that ordinarily impose a CGT liability on sales of small business related CGT assets.

Share or interest sales need to meet additional basic conditions

For CGT events involving sales of shares in companies or interests in trusts “additional” basic conditions have commenced with the TIOMA. The additional basic conditions go further than what I describe here. In this post I wish to focus on the significance of the dual $6m maximum net asset value tests that the TIOMA initiates. So in the below considerations I am going to assume that the other basic conditions for the small business CGT concessions, including the additional basic conditions, such as the dual active asset test, which also needs to be considered following the introduction of the TIOMA, will be met.

The dual MNAV and SBE tests

The dual $6m maximum net asset value (MNAV) tests are alternative tests with the similarly dual small business entity ($2m aggregated turnover) (SBE) tests which apply where the small business CGT relief is sought on a sale of shares in a company or an interest in a trust. The dual MNAV tests and SBE tests separately test both the taxpayer (“you”) and the object entity which is the relevant company or trust in which the shares are or interest is held by the taxpayer as the case may be. To obtain relief under the basic conditions, and under the additional basic conditions set out in sub-section 152-10 as revised by the TIOMA, the dual tests must be separately satisfied to obtain any small business CGT concession relief:

Taxpayer must satisfy AND Object entity must satisfy
MNAV test or SBE test   Modified MNAV test or SBE test and carried on business up to day of sale

When the object entity MNAV test becomes vital

In practice, there is a significant slew of sales of shares or trust interests where the object entity won’t satisfy the SBE test because of:

  • an aggregated annual turnover of the object entity of more than $2 million; or
  • alternatively, the object entity may satisfy that SBE test but paragraph 152-10(2)(a) may apply because the object entity ceased to carry on its business some time before the sale.

In those cases the object entity also needs to satisfy the MNAV test even where the taxpayer has separately satisfied either of the MNAV test or the SBE test or both.

Satisfaction of the MNAV test by the object entity may thus be vital to the availability of the small business CGT concessions to a taxpayer selling shares or a trust interest. Where the object entity, let us say a private company with multiple owners, is worth more than $6m overall, this may well be a problem for minority owners who otherwise are:

  • on or over the 20% significant individual/CGT stakeholder threshold; or
  • with net asset value (NAV) under $6m who sell their shares looking for the small business CGT concessions.

The Explanatory Memorandum with the TIOMA gives the following example:

Example 2.4: Investment in large business

Karen carries on a small consulting business as a sole trader. She is a CGT small business entity (according to the general rules) for the 2019-20 income year. Karen also owns 30 per cent of the shares in Big Pty Ltd, a large private company with annual turnover in excess of $20 million in both the 2018-19 and 2019 CGT assets exceeds $100 million throughout this period. On 1 October 2019, Karen sells her shares in Big Pty Ltd. She would not be eligible to access the Division 152 CGT concessions for any resulting capital gain. Even if Karen satisfies the other basic conditions for relief, she cannot satisfy the new condition. Big Pty Ltd is not a CGT small business entity in the 2019-20 income year. It also does not satisfy the maximum net asset value test in relation to the capital gain, as its net assets exceed $6 million immediately prior to the CGT event happening (being in excess of $100 million for the entire income year).

MNAV test complexities

Like the SBE test with aggregated turnover of the taxpayer, affiliates and their connected entities, compliance with the MNAV test relies on, or more specifically NAV (net asset value) must stay under the relevant $6m limit after, aggregation.

Before aggregation is considered there is a flip side: the exclusions from the MNAV test: The substantial exclusions are confined to individual taxpayers viz. interests in an individual’s main residence, personal use assets, superannuation and insurance: section 152-20 of the ITAA 1997. The other exclusions in this section are largely to prevent accounting anomalies with:

  • accounting provisions; and
  • the double counting of the value of an asset indirectly held in an entity and the value of the stake in the entity including the asset, representing the same value, in NAV.

Liabilities are also excluded from NAV where they relate to assets so the MNAV test can be a maximum net asset value test.

The value of assets that are not excluded are tallied in NAV when applying the MNAV test. Then aggregation must be done. Just like with the complexity of small business CGT concessions integrity more generally, MNAV tests and sometimes qualification for the concessions, involve a hierarchy of constructs which, for the purposes of illustration, can be loosely compared to the pieces on a chessboard one’s opponent in chess may hold:


Chess piece: King

Div 152 construct: The taxpayer

Comment: If the King falls, it’s game over. If either NAV of the taxpayer or (modified) NAV of the object entity exceeds $6m in each required MNAV test the basic condition is failed unless there is a pathway to compliance through the SBE test as described above.

Chess piece: Queen

Div 152 construct: An affiliate

Comment: Although an affiliate is not the taxpayer (or object entity), the NAV of the affiliate also counts/aggregates to the taxpayer (or object entity) when applying the MNAV test to the taxpayer (or object entity), in all directions including NAV aggregated from connected (and Oconnected in the case of an object entity – see below) entities of the affiliate.

Chess piece: Bishop

Div 152 construct: Connected entities

Comment: The whole of the NAV of the connected entity (excluding the exclusions described above) counts in the MNAV test. So if a taxpayer, or an affiliate, has a stake of 50% in a connected entity X, all (100%) of X’s net value is aggregated to the taxpayer’s NAV (including NAV relating to the stake in X of minority stakeholders unrelated to the taxpayer or affiliate). If Y is a connected entity of X then aggregate all (100%) of Y’s net value to the taxpayer’s NAV too.

Chess piece: Knight

Div 152 construct: Oconnected entities

Comment: The Oconnected entity (my terminology – I thought of using “controlled entity” which is in contrast to a connected entity which can either control or be controlled by the other entity it is connected to. But controlled entity is misleading for, as we shall see, only a 20% stake, hardly control in any sense, is needed to trigger this link) is a new construct introduced with the additional basic conditions in the TIOMA relating to the object entity.

The NAV of a Oconnected entity is aggregated to the NAV of the object entity but it is look through forward to aggregate and not look through back too (unlike “controlled by the other entity” which can connect too to a connected entity). An example is needed to explain constructs here: So if O, an object entity controls Q an Oconnected entity, due to a 20% or greater stake in Q, and P is another unrelated stakeholder in Q; the value of Q owned by P is included in the NAV of Q aggregated to O (see the outcome of that in the below Example 2.5 drawn from the Explanatory Memorandum) but the NAV of P and its connected entities is excluded from the NAV of O (if they are not separately affiliated/connected to O).

In chess the Knight moves in a weird way so the Knight is the allegory chosen here!

Chess piece: Pawn

Div 152 construct: Asset or investment of the above

Comment: A pawn generally moves one space in chess. $1 in value of an asset or investment owned by a taxpayer or object entity, which is not excluded, counts $1 to the NAV of the taxpayer or an object entity.  $1 in value of an asset or investment owned by affiliates, connected entities and Oconnected entities, which are not excluded, count $1 to the affiliate, connected entity and Oconnected entity, as the case may be, but if that NAV is in an affiliate, a connected entity or a Oconnected entity of the taxpayer or object entity in applying the dual tests, the whole NAV of the relevant entity is aggregated to the taxpayer/object entity, not its proportionate NAV based on percentage stake. i.e. A percentage stake is only used for an interest in an entity where the entity the interest is held in is not an affiliate, connected entity or, in the case of the object entity MNAV test, an Oconnected entity.

I don’t play chess and I accept my chess analogy with the workings of the MNAV tests is far from perfect. My endeavour is to make this consideration of the hierarchical workings of the MNAV tests a little more comprehendible and so, perhaps, if you are still reading by this point I have succeeded? If the comparison with chess conveys:

  • that counts of over $6m by either of the taxpayer NAV or the object entity NAV will generally mean failure of a basic condition for the Division 152 CGT relief so can lead to loss of the game; and
  • that high value pieces accelerate aggregation of NAV to the $6m limit. That is they can move more than one space: every $1 of a stake a taxpayer (or object entity) in a connected entity (or Oconnected entity), and affiliates and their connected entities without needing any stake in the affiliate of the taxpayer (or object entity) will generally aggregate more than $1 to NAV as the value of others’ stakes in these entities will count to the NAV attributed to the taxpayer (or object entity) too.

The modified MNAV test of the object entity & the modified Oconnected entity

The NAV for controlled entities of an object entity is different due to sub-paras 152-10(2)(c)(iii), (iv) & (v) in the TIOMA:

The threshold between unrelated entity, counted simply as an asset or investment (pawn) to NAV and connected entity (bishop) consistent with other tests of control in the ITAA 1936 and the ITAA 1997 is 40% with a discretion given to the Commissioner where:

  • there is 40% or over and under a 50% stake; and
  • it can be established to the Commissioner that some other entity controls the entity that would otherwise be the connected entity.

In practice this means expect the Commissioner to de-connect A from connection with X if A owned 48% of X and B (unconnected to A) owned 52% of X.

When applying the object entity MNAV test, sub-paras 152-10(2)(c)(iii), (iv) & (v) have operation so that the threshold is lowered to a 20% stake in the other entity. That is enough “control” to make the other entity, otherwise an asset or investment, an Oconnected entity (knight). This is apparent from another example in the Explanatory Memorandum with the TIOMA:

Example 2.5: Indirect investment in large business

Tien owns 20 per cent of the shares in Investment Co, a company that carries on an investment business. Investment Co is a CGT small business entity (according to the general rules) for the 2020-21 income year. Investment Co holds 20 per cent of Van Co, a transport company. Van’s assets mean that it is not a CGT small business entity in the 2020-21 income year and does not satisfy the maximum net asset value test at any point during the income year. On 15 May 2021, Tien sells his shares in Investment Co. He is not eligible to access the Division 152 CGT concessions for any resulting capital gain. Even if Tien satisfies the other conditions, he cannot satisfy the new condition requiring the object entity be a CGT small business entity or satisfy the maximum net asset value test due to the modifications that apply when determining this matter for the purposes of this condition. For the purposes of this condition, Investment Co is considered to be connected with Van Co, as Investment Co holds 20 per cent of Van.

As stated in the table above there is no look through back so in a case where an object entity has a stake of 21% of X, the NAV in entities connected to X by virtue of the remaining 79% stakes in X are excluded from the object entity NAV although the NAV of the assets of  X, including that relating to the other stakeholders, counts to the object entity NAV.