- What assets? When advising an individual – the individual’s assets and, it follows, when advising a company the company’s assets.
- From whom? – we commonly focus on protecting our clients’ assets from their creditors e.g. suppliers, the Australian Taxation Office and others. However, you may wish to protect your assets from your business partner, husband, wife or de-facto.
- How you hold your assets and protect them is not always a question of tax effectiveness. Significant costs can be saved by developing effective asset protection strategies before the asset or business is acquired.
- There are many structures available that provide a balance between tax effectiveness and asset protection in respect of the long reach of a trustee under the Bankruptcy Act or a liquidator under the Corporations Act 2001, both of which contain detailed provisions to set aside transactions which have been entered into for the purposes of putting assets beyond the reach of creditors.
- To beat the effect of the Bankruptcy Act, Corporations Act and the Property Law Act, you can take advantage of a range of strategies including:
- Use of licence agreements supported by laws relating to the provision of a personal property security under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 – if you lend, rent or lease assets to your business;
- The grant of a mortgage – if a family member lends you money or you lend your own company money, why not protect it with a mortgage?
- An effective strategy can be put in place within 24 hours for a relatively modest fee.
- If you intend to take a risk or you are the director of a company that takes risks, contact us today and let us develop a tax effective means of protecting your assets.
- The costs of developing an effective asset protection strategy are ‘small change’ compared to what you stand to lose.
