5 Signs Your Business Structure No Longer Fits Your Tax or Succession Goals

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<h1>5 Signs Your Business Structure No Longer Fits Your Tax or Succession Goals </h1><strong> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_Lester Ong.aspx'>Lester Ong</a></strong><br /><p>Most business owners set up their structure once and never look back. That made sense at the start. But as revenue grows, families shift, and retirement gets closer, the original setup can quietly start working against you. Here's how to spot the warning signs before they cost you. 1. Your Tax Bill Keeps Climbing Without A Clear Reason Profit growth is great. A tax bill that grows faster than your profit isn't. When a structure no longer distributes income efficiently across family members or related entities, the ATO effectively decides who pays, and at what rate. A tax lawyer in Perth Australia can identify whether the current setup leaves distribution options on the table, or whether shifting to a different trust or company arrangement produces a better outcome for everyone involved. 2. You Have No Real Plan for Who Gets What Succession planning isn't just about what happens when someone dies. It covers illness, divorce, retirement, and business disputes too. If your structure doesn't spell out what happens to your interest when any of those events occur, you're already exposed. Watch for these gaps: • No buy-sell agreement between business partners • Trust deed silent on what happens if a trustee loses capacity • No shareholder agreement covering exit rights or valuation • Business and personal assets mixed inside the same entity Any one of these can derail an otherwise well-run business at the worst possible time. 3. You're Running on An Outdated Trust Deed A discretionary trust deed from the 1990s or early 2000s may not reflect current tax practice for trust income streaming, distributions to corporate beneficiaries, unpaid present entitlements, or Division 7A risk. The deed itself can also limit who may receive income or capital, what categories of income can be streamed, and how resolutions must be made, which may affect distributions that have been prepared on an assumed basis for years. Advisers at Munro Doig regularly encounter this situation. It's a compliance risk sitting in a filing cabinet, and most owners have no idea it's there. 4. Your Super Strategy Is Running Separately from Your Business Exit For business owners approaching 55 to 60, the interaction between the small business CGT concessions and superannuation contributions deserves close attention. The 15-year exemption, the retirement exemption, the $500,000 lifetime retirement exemption limit, and the separate indexed CGT cap for super contributions all need careful coordination with contribution rules, eligibility conditions and timing. Getting this right makes a significant difference to what ends up in an owner's pocket at exit. The best tax lawyer in Perth with experience across both tax and super, gives business owners the best chance of structuring that transition properly, not just on paper, but in practice. 5. You've Added Assets or Entities Without A Structural Review Adding assets or entities without revisiting the whole structure is a bit like renovating a house without checking the foundations first. Each piece might look fine individually, but the overall load shifts every time something new comes in. Common trigger events that warrant an immediate review: • A new property purchased inside or alongside an existing entity • A new business partner brought on without defined equity or exit terms • An inheritance received with no asset protection plan in place • A trust wound up informally without accounting for CGT or duty consequences Each addition compounds the last. Left unchecked, the gaps between entities quietly grow into real exposure. Don't Wait for A Problem to Force the Conversation If two or more of these signs apply, a structural review is overdue. Early advice costs a fraction of what it takes to unwind a poorly structured transaction after the fact. </p><strong>About the Author:</strong><br />Munro Doig is a leading private client services law firm based in Perth, Western Australia. Visit us for more info: <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.munrodoig.com.au/ ">https://www.munrodoig.com.au/</a><p> Article Source: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/Article_5-Signs-Your-Business-Structure-No-Longer-Fits-Your-Tax-or-Succession-Goals_331670.aspx'> http://www.articleseen.com/Article_5 Signs Your Business Structure No Longer Fits Your Tax or Succession Goals _331670.aspx</a></p>

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Keywords : tax lawyer in Perth Australia, Munro Doig, best tax lawyer in Perth,

Category : Finance : Taxes