The vast majority of rollovers available under the Tax Act relate to transactions between companies.
There is however a series of transactions that effectively allows one form of structure to be converted into another.
Following last week’s post, I was reminded of one of the very few rollovers that allows the iteration from one legal structure to another. In particular, the tax rollover available for a discretionary trust that allows a trust to transfer all of its assets into a company, so long as the shares in the company are owned by that same discretionary trust. This form of rollover is available under Subdivision 122A of the 1997 Tax Act.
Obviously, there are stamp duty considerations in many states still that often need to be taken into account, however the rollover can be a very useful one in a wide range of circumstances to ensure no tax is triggered.
We have particularly seen it used proactively as part of a succession plan – it is often seen as easier to facilitate the transfer of shares in a company, as opposed to managing the control of a discretionary trust. For those interested, our book ‘The Seven Foundations of Business Succession’ explores each of the key company and trust rollover concessions used in estate and succession planning see - http://viewlegal.com.au/product/the-seven-foundations-of-business-succession/