We recently had a query about a mother who wishes to transfer a farm to her daughter.
There are transfer duty exemptions for transfers of farming property to relations, including trusts of which relations are beneficiaries, as long as no one other than family members are the beneficiaries.
The exemption is not available if the farm is held by a discretionary trust, which is the situation here.
Just over $10,000 in transfer duty is payable if the trust sells the farm to the daughter.
However, the way around it is to vest the farm in the mother, for which only nominal duty of $20.00 is payable, then transfer it to the daughter or a trust which she will control.
For help with structuring property transactions tax-effectively, please contact Michael Paterson & Associates.