With family trusts under threat as a tax shelter, are companies looking like an attractive tax effective alternative?
The tax effectiveness of a family trust is that profits are distributed to members of the family, as you choose, every year. This means diverting the profit distributions away from high income earners to low income earners (such as adult children) to take advantage of the tax free threshold of $18,200, and the 19 per cent tax bracket up to $37,000, so as to avoid distributions to high income earners who have tax brackets of 37 per cent from $87,000 up to $180,000 and 45 per cent above.
The threat (currently the federal opposition policy) is for family trust distributions to be taxed at a rate of 30 per cent. For example: if the low income earner is earning wages (from casual or part-time work) of $15,000 pa, then that is tax free because it is earned income. But on every dollar of trust distribution which tops up income up to $37,000, the tax rate is proposed to be 30 per cent. Trust distributions which top up income above $37,000 will be taxed according to the tax bracket, which is 32.5 per cent.
Company profits are kept by the company - they do not need to be fully distributed each year - unlike profits from a family trust which must be distributed. After paying company tax, the profits do not need to be paid out as dividends. Therefore, if the shareholders are high income earners, they can avoid receiving income which is taxable in a high tax bracket.
The icing on the cake is the recent company tax rate cuts, which for a company with an annual income of less than $25 million, means a tax rate of 27.5 per cent instead of 30 per cent. This means that small company can retain more of its profits.
But the 27.5 per cent tax rate is available only if 20 per cent or more of the company's income is from business activities. That is, pure investment income does not qualify, such as rent, interest, dividends, capital gains and trust distributions
Conclusion: If a flat tax rate of 27.5 per cent is attractive, then it's a good idea to switch to using a company for a new active investment or business.
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