Professor Willie van der Westhuizen, a renowned expert on the matter of trusts, recently published an informative article on the future of trusts after the publication of the First Interim Report on Estate Duty by the Davis Tax Committee (DTC) on 13 July 2015 which should be of great interest to financial planners and their clients.
“The DTC acknowledges the fact that through interest free loans to trusts (and thus pegging the growth in personal estates) the trust is the ideal vehicle to “park the wealth” during the wealth builders’ lifetime and to diminish estate duty upon his/her demise. It is therefore not surprising that the DTC, with their objective to look at means to prevent the erosion of the tax base (and to generate more revenue) will recommend that “parking of the wealth” in the trust be made unattractive and that if and whenever the wealth is moved out of the trust, capital gains tax (CGT) will have to do its bit to neutralise the loss in estate duty because of the reduced wealth in the deceased estate.”
Please click here to read the article. Feel free to forward it to your clients.
