To trust or not to trust – after the Davis Tax Committee’s report
23 July 2015, Willie van der Westhuizen
As long ago as 1789 one JB Le Roy wrote “In this world nothing can be said to be certain,... except death and taxes”. When both these certainties hit you at the same time in the form of death duties or estate duty, you can be sure that those left behind, will wonder where the money for the taxman will come from. Valuable family assets have in the past turned into taxman’s money due to bad planning and forced sales. In the past most of the agony was spared by using the right tools such as a family trust for the family valuables or life insurance. At least this has been the case for the past decade and more. But what about the future, now after the publication of the First Interim Report on Estate Duty by the Davis Tax Committee (DTC) on 13 July 2015?