Estate Planning

Most people think their Will controls all their wealth after their passing. For a business owner, the Will often controls the smallest slice of it. Super, trust assets, jointly held property and company shares mostly move by other rules and EstatePlanning is the work of ensuring your wealth lands where you want it to.

Most Australians have a Will that covers their house, their car and their bank accounts, but what about their Bitcoin, their Netflix account, their online share portfolio, or the Instagram account with 50,000 followers that earns advertising revenue?

For most people, these assets simply vanish or becomeinaccessible when they die.

This podcast discusses ensuring that these assets are accessible and protected after death.

If you have a family trust, a self-managed super fund, or a will with a testamentary trust clause sitting quietly inside it, then a set of changes announced in this year's Federal Budget may matter a great deal to you and to the people you intend to provide for.

In the May 2026 Federal Budget, the Government proposed a new 30 per cent minimum tax on the income ofdiscretionary trusts, due to commence from 1 July 2028.

Among estate planners, the alarm bells rang loudest over what it might mean for discretionary testamentarytrusts: the trusts created by your will, long valued for their asset protection and for allowing income to be shared tax-effectively among family members, including children, at ordinary adult tax rates.

The original Budget carve-out for testamentary trusts was unusually narrow, and after considerable pushbackfrom the legal and advice community, and a Senate inquiry, the Government amended its position in mid-June.

To make sense of what has actually changed,what is now protected, and what still hangs on legislation we have not yet seen, wills and estates accredited specialist, Teresa Catalano, leads us through the maze.

This podcast looks at the impact of marriage, separation, and divorce on the Wills of couples, whether married or de facto.

It explores the interplay between family law areas such as Binding Financial Agreements "BFA's" and the laws concerning wills and deceased estates.

Enjoy!