Estate Planning is a way of ensuring that the assets you own are passed onto your beneficiaries in the most financially efficient and tax effective way possible. This is essential to protect your assets and your family. The main issues that we help you consider in estate planning include:
Our specific Estate Planning service includes the following:
Our financial advisers work through your estate planning needs to ensure your loved ones are protected for the future.
Superannuation is generally not an estate asset and therefore its distribution upon death is not governed by your Will. It is the governing rules of the superannuation fund that determines the manner in which death benefits are to be paid.
The court case Katz v Grossman highlights the importance of correct estate planning in respect of superannuation benefits within a Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF).
Katz v Grossman [2005] NSWSC 934
Husband and wife were members and Trustees of a SMSF. They had a daughter and son. Wife died and her benefits were paid to her husband Ervin.
Ervin appointed his daughter as an additional trustee. Ervin died later. Daughter appointed her husband as additional trustee of the SMSF.
Daughter and her husband refused to follow father’s non-binding nomination that his benefits in the fund be shared equally between his daughter and his son and determined to pay the death benefits to herself.
Notwithstanding her father's wishes, her brother received none of the superannuation benefits.
The Court in Katz v Grossman found that the trustee had a duty to administer the fund in accordance with the governing SIS Act and trust deed, but did not impose an additional duty on the trustee to act in an equitable manner.
The case highlights three key issues of superannuation and death benefit planning: Trustee structure; Binding death benefit nominations; Trust deeds.
