Morris Succession Lawyers

30/07/2026

Our Laurieton office will be closed tomorrow (Friday 31 July) for further renovations. The phone lines will remain open as normal. Apologies for any inconvenience!

30/07/2026

(Partial) Budget Backflip - Estate Planning

The rollercoaster for taxpayers, estate planning lawyers, accountants and financial advisors in the wake of the May Budget has continued, with a partial backflip on the tax treatment of discretionary testamentary trusts.

As the dust continues to settle, the Federal Government is slowly providing more clarity on what the changes are and how they will effect long established structures in Succession Law.

What hasn't changed?

✅ Trustees still need to avoid retaining income, lest the highest marginal tax rates apply.
✅Beneficiaries still declare distributions from trusts in their personal tax returns
✅Special Disability Trusts are unaffected. These are heavily regulated trusts that can be established for the benefit of a person suffering a disability either during the lifetime of a person or within their Will.
✅Trusts that derive a high level of income from primary production/farming remain exempt from the changes
✅Fixed trusts such as unit trusts are unaffected
✅Income derived during the estate administration phase is exempted
✅Excepted income remains available for minor beneficiaries of testamentary trusts. This was a significant backflip from the Federal Government and rightly so! The original Budget was going to penalise orphans and vunerable beneficiaries with a tax rate of 30% from the first $$ of income received (instead of from $45,000 for an employee).

What has changed?

❌ Family trusts will be hit with a minimum tax rate of 30%. Many small businesses will be affected and now is the time to talk to your lawyer and accountant.
❌ Business owners who use a family trust to enable a spouse to spend more time raising children will not be able to income split in a more tax efficient manner
❌ Bucket companies - whether in a family trust or testamentary trust - have been taxed out of existence. This is due to the tax credit from the trustee (for the 30% paid already) not being able to be passed onto a corporate beneficiary.
❌ The rollover relief for businesses that need to restructure does not extend to State Stamp Duties. ‼️ Discretionary trusts with land holdings will need to carefully consider the potentially massive transaction costs of restructuring. For some clients this will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The next 6-12 months should be utilised to review your estate plans and business structures to ensure that they are fit for purpose.

Contact the team if you'd like to discuss further

[email protected]

02 6584 1185 Port Macquarie

02 6559 9800 Laurieton

01/07/2026

Congratulations to Brooke Genders who has been promoted to Partner within Morris Succession Lawyers from today.

Brooke has been working with Richard Morris and the team for many years, and has developed a high level of expertise in law, while taking a pragmatic and practical approach to matters, and sharing key firm values of empathy and care for clients, staff and our community.

Well done Brooke!

11/06/2026

Our Laurieton office is expanding! We’re very happy to announce that we are undertaking a renovation of our Laurieton premises, which will include an additional two rooms and storage for our growing team.

Thanks to PDD Accountants for their cooperation and Built by CC for their ongoing expertise! Shoutout to the legends at TechNext for our IT upgrades too.

More to come 🔨🪚

15/05/2026

What a week for tax law and trusts!

We have been fielding enquiries from concerned clients, and advisors regarding the proposed changes to the taxation system in the Federal Budget.

Prior to the Budget it was apparent that there would be a focus on changes to the CGT discount, however there have been a number of surprises in the Budget that were not anticipated and represent radical changes from the existing arrangements.

The loss of the pre-CGT exemptions for assets acquired prior to 20 September 1985 was one such surprise. This has long been part of the tax system and it is difficult to understand how measures that have retrospective action can be justified in any reforms.

At this early stage it appears that "bucket companies" will no longer be a useful structure as part of a discretionary trust arrangement. Formerly, discretionary trusts could distribute income to a company and the company would pay tax on the income at corporate tax rates. The company could then either retain the income to invest further or ultimately declare dividends to individuals. Those individuals would receive a franking credit for the tax paid by the company, and if their personal taxable income was higher than the corporate tax rates, then they would be liable for an additional "top up" tax above the corporate rate.

The proposed changes now result in the trustee of the discretionary trust paying tax at 30%, but if a company receives the income as a distribution then it too pays additional tax without any tax credit for what the trustee has paid. We have seen this variously reported as resulting in the effective tax rate as being somewhere between 51% and 71%. By any measure this is untenable.

In the estate planning context, the full details have not been released, but it appears that discretionary testamentary trusts may be subject to the 30% flat tax rate, but not fixed trusts within Wills. This may leave some benefits from a asset protection perspective remaining, and some tax benefits will remain with properly structured testamentary trusts.

Morris Succession Lawyers (subject to instructions) draft our testamentary trusts to include inbuilt flexibility and variation mechanisms, which will allow our clients to nagivate dramatic changes, akin to this week's Budget. These include the ability to bypass discretionary trusts to corporate beneficiaries or fixed trusts, or to vary the terms of existing discretionary trusts to comply with transitional arrangements.

We will continue to monitor the proposed changes closely, but if you have any questions or concerns then please feel free to reach out! The full impact of any changes will not be clear until the legislation is prepared and if/when it passes Parliament.

19/04/2026

Congratulations to the on their first Premiers Plate! We hope that our small contribution towards the matchday suppport and atmosphere helped tip the the scales

19/04/2026

19/04/2026

Congratulations to the Newcastle Jets on their first Premiers Plate! We hope that our small contribution towards the matchday support and atmosphere helped tip the the scales

17/04/2026

Bank of Mum & Dad 🏦

With the cost of living and general cost of property in Australia, it is unsurprising that many parents look to assist their children into the property market if they have the means to do so.

Reportedly 60% of first home buyers in Australia receive some form of financial assistance from their parents.

It is important that when providing assistance to your children that careful consideration is given to how the payment is structured, taking into account the potential estate planning consequences and what would happen in the event that the children subsequently divorces/ has a family law property settlement down the track.

We recommend that parents consider using documented loan agreements, to safeguard funds from future property settlements. If the loan is considered a genuine liability, then these funds would be excluded from the matrimonial property pool.

In Anwar and Melat (2020) 62 Fam LR 337, the court iterated that the characterisation of an advance as a loan depends on objective evidence, such as the existence of documentation, terms of repayment, and the intention of the parties at the time of the transaction.

The absence of formal documentation or clear terms does not automatically negate the existence of a loan, but the party asserting the loan must provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate an intention to create a legally enforceable relationship.