At the beginning of March, the New Zealand Government introduced a series of more stringent disclosure requirements for taxable domestic trusts.

For income years following the 31^st March 2022, trustees will have to submit to the Inland Revenue Department (Inland Revenue) a statement of profit or loss and a statement of financial position. This provisions have the aim to support the monitoring by the Inland Revenue of the use of entities and structures by trustees, moreover, the information provided will be used to evaluate trustee’s compliance with the 39% top rate of personal income tax which came into force in December 2020.

The requirements set out by the new provisions are the following:

the use of double-entry bookkeeping for statements;
assets and liabilities valuation at market, at cost or at tax adjusted value;
trustee reports must also contain settlors and beneficiaries’ details, as well as the amount and nature of settlements received and distributions made.

If the reports are less than AUD 100,000 income/expenditures or less than AUD 5 million total assets, a simplified reporting procedure may apply.

The trusts excluded from the reporting rules are:

non-active trusts
foreign trusts
registered charitable trusts
Maori trusts
large pension trusts
employee share schemes

SOURCE: https://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz

ITA