The adviser
sign-on letter.

To the Treasurer and Members of Parliament

We are accountants, tax agents and lawyers who advise family businesses. We support the integrity of the tax system, including rules against trust loss trafficking.

But Family Trust Distribution Tax now reaches families who made honest mistakes decades ago, often where the money stayed in the family and every dollar of income tax was paid. The tax has no time limit, the Tax Office says it has no discretion, and interest compounds daily from day 81.

We see the consequences in our practices: bills many times the amount distributed, records that no longer exist, and businesses and family homes at risk.

We ask Parliament to add two protections that almost every other tax already has: a time limit on assessments, with fraud and evasion excluded, and a discretion for the Commissioner to waive the tax for genuine mistakes where nobody gained a tax benefit.