From 1 March 2020, the Victorian Government changed the administration of the foreign trust provisions of the Duties Act.

This means that some trustees will now be paying 13.5% duty on the purchase of Victorian residential land, rather than 5.5% which was formerly the case.

Where a trust has a foreigner as a beneficiary, even as an unnamed discretionary object, the trust is a foreign trust (foreigner = anyone who is not an Australian citizen, a permanent resident of Australia or a New Zealand citizen with the appropriate visa)

This is not retrospective.

But if your trust is intending to purchase Victorian residential land and if someone named in the trust or a relative of that person is a foreigner, the trust is facing 8% extra duty on its purchase.

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