Chartered Accountants ANZ is calling for the Government to reveal the findings of the Trust Disclosure Rules which came into effect a year ago, that require trust holders to provide detailed information about the operations of their trust.

“Twelve months ago, the Government made trusts share much more detailed information about their activities, which would be used to inform taxation decisions – such as changing the trustee tax rate,” said CA ANZ Tax Leader John Cuthbertson FCA.

“Now the Government has a year’s worth of data, and we think that trustees and taxpayers deserve to see what the findings are, to further inform conversations about our tax system.”

“There’s been a huge conversation about taxation and wealth, and we commend the Government for their focus on data to inform decision making.”

“In an election year, this data will be vital in policy formation to focus the public’s thinking on what we want from our tax system.”

“We expected this trust data to come out before any change to the trust tax rate was suggested, but it appears that the $5.7 billion spike in income taxed at the 33 per cent trustee rate in the first year of the 39 per cent top marginal tax rate was all the evidence that the Government needed to respond.”

In 2020 the Ministry of Justice estimated there were between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts.

“The issue is that trusts are mainstream in New Zealand, and not just for the rich. We’re a nation of small business owners, and a lot of them will have their family assets in a trust to protect them from creditors,” continued Mr Cuthbertson.

“At the time, we expressed concern about the cost and expense of providing this additional information, particularly for small trusts. It’s not unreasonable to expect that if all this information is provided, that it will be used, and that once it’s provided, trustees don’t get asked for it a second time,” continued Mr Cuthbertson.