At last week’s South African Institute of Taxation Tax Indaba, trusts were on the agenda again. And the South African Revenue Service (Sars) new measures of ensuring trusts are run as separate entities (such as companies) on a real-time basis and not on an ad hoc basis in an attempt to prove compliance, was very much part of the conversation.

Phia van der Spuy, our regular Trust-to-Trust columnist in Business Report, and the monthly Trustworthy opinion piece writer for our Saturday feature in Independent on a Saturday, Weekend Argus and Saturday Star, is our guest today. She led a panel on this very topic at the Indaba and she is going help us layman get into the nitty gritty of this important part of trusts play in financial and estate planning and the huge element of tax that goes with it. 

Phia is a chartered accountant with a Master’s degree in tax and a registered fiduciary practitioner as well as, a chartered tax adviser and a trust and estate practitioner