Corporate unit trusts and public trading trusts are trusts in a legal sense but treated as companies for tax purposes.

The taxation of deceased estates can be easy and it can be tricky.  It depends on what goes in, what happens while it is in there and how it leaves.

You got married and just bid on a house. Should you buy the house as joint tenants or tenants in common?

Super is not part of your estate. Here is the story of David Mandie’s SMSF that set the precedent.

When you die, everything you own will go into your deceased estate unless specifically excluded. And the devil is in these exclusions.

A non-fixed trust can only deduct tax losses and debt deductions if there is continuity of control of the trust. So here comes the control test.

The 50% stake test is all about who has been holding more than a 50% stake in the trust and whether that has changed from the loss to the income year.

The pattern of distributions test only applies to non-fixed trusts without a family trust election.

The income injection test applies to all fixed and non-fixed trusts including family trusts. The only exception are excepted trusts that are not family trusts.

A unit trust is a very common feature in Australia. Most widely held trusts are unit trusts. But when are unit trusts fixed trusts and when not?