Tax Planning
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
— Benjamin Franklin
What is Tax Planning?
Tax Planning is the legal minimisation of the taxes you pay. Financial planners can provide clients with tax advice, to better inform their clients of the best ways to structure their funds in order to reduce their taxes.
These may include, voluntary superannuation contributions, tax efficient investments, tax aware estate planning, and tax strategies for retirement.
“Now, of course I am minimising my tax, and if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want their heads read. Because as a government, I can tell you, you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.”
— Kerry Packer
Where we use Tax Planning
Tax planning, or tax planning strategies, are different ways for people to lower their tax obligations.
Tupicoffs are happy to provide financial tax planning advice and work with your accountant, or recommend one.
However, we are not accountants and cannot provide you with accounting services.
Estate Planning
Effective tax planning is often used as a part of estate planning, where it is used to understand and minimise possibilities such as capital gains tax, and inheritance tax. Estate tax planning is ensuring that your estate plans consider the tax consequences to achieve the best after tax outcome. Appropriate estate tax planning strategies allow the payment of tax costs to be built into all aspects of the estate and prevents unexpected costs to grieving loved ones.
The combinations of estate planning and tax planning considers possible capital gains taxes, inheritance tax, and investment tax. These should all be accounted for in some manner as estate plans are made.
Retirement Planning
Appropriate retirement planning takes into account the taxes you will need to pay across your whole retired life. Retirement tax planning looks at the use of low tax and tax free vehicles available specifically for retirement.
It considers a possible change of home, and the capital gains tax that comes from buying and selling property. Retirement tax planning is about ensuring that you keep as many of your retirement dollars as possible.
Investment Advice
Tax investment planning involves the consideration and planning of where taxable income arrives, in order to minimise the tax that needs to be paid.
The owner of the investments makes a difference to when and how taxes are paid. The investments could be held jointly or individually, by a trust or a company, or they could be owned by a super fund. Each option presents different tax planning and tax obligations, and brings different benefits for clients
Insurance Advice
Tax planning is an important aspect of insurance advice. In terms of insurance, tax planning is centred around optimising the possible payment of funds. It addresses if the insurance policy is income taxable or not and the difference that makes if the policy ever needs to be paid.
Insurance tax planning also optimises where the funds go if you are paid out in a lump sum, to ensure that you retain as much of the paid funds as possible. A lump sum insurance payment can be for many reasons, but it is always important to ensure it is able to cover your needs in whatever situation you find yourself in. This preservation of funds is particularly important when dealing with something like TPD insurance, where any funds paid to you will need to cover your needs long term.
