The introduction of trust streaming changes has caused many practitioners to panic about ensuring clients’ trustee distributions are correctly in place by 30 June each year. In this paper, Graeme spells out what is needed to methodically address each client’s circumstances by 30 June to ensure your trustee client, and you, are safe from ATO scrutiny.
The issues covered include:
- Where do you start and where do you go to find the information?
- Practical recognition and treatment of the basic terms of distributable income, s95(1) income, income equalisation and income recharacterisation clauses, including TR 2012/D1 interpretation
- Use of proportions, fractions or percentages rather than dollar amounts
- What types of income can be streamed and how?
- How to handle distributions through a chain of trusts
- What happens if the ATO amends?
- Use of resolution decision checklists and decision trees
- Determining the eventual journal entries, general ledgers and accounts.