** silentgoldfish** the disowning part really sucks. I think you’ve got every right to be perturbed by late letters from the ATO – they are fairly intimidatory.
I hope you can sort this out with your mum. I vaguely remember from when my parents talked about setting up a trust there wasn’t a shitload of benefits to me in the shortterm but it could have benefited them.
Well, be sick and tired. I have no control over that. My post was to mention that since my mom is dead, I have no chance of ever seeing or talking to her again. Silentgoldfish says his(?) mom has made the conscious choice of cutting him off from any further contact. See, I can accept there is no more contact because it’s impossible, while gold is shut out with little or no chance of ever seeing mom again.
For whatever people think of my posts and views, I am human and have empathy.
I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, so I don’t know if you’ve already been ripped for this…
But fark you, man. Just because somebody is born into a family situation where they have the advantages of a will, of an inheritance and whatnot, does -not- mean that tragedy can not befall them. In my mind, family is more important than birthrights, taxes, and personal mistakes one makes in their lives.
Unfortunately, my parents did not feel the same way, either. So to hell with them. And to hell with you.
Silentgoldfish, sorry to hear about this. I’m not up on what a Family Trust in Aussie tax law might be, so I can’t really judge that. Having said that, while it’s possible in my mind that your mother could have reasonable reasons for wanting you out of the house; excising you from the will, and the family, too, is insane. I’d be heartbroken to be told I’m out of my family.
For those of you crapping on Silent because of jealousy, grow up.
If she was paying taxes on your trust, how were you a tax break? And why didn’t you pay them yourself to ensure that they were timely? Maybe from her viewpoint, it was nice to know she was nothing but a windfall.
Yes you do. Good for you having compassion, unlike some. 
I don’t know if it Aussie laws are exactly like ours but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were similar. My best friend established a family trust for her house when she was single because NZ has property laws that relate to defacto couples.
Her lawyer told her that if she kept the house in her name and lived with a guy for 2 years and then they split he would get 50% of the house, but if she put it in a family trust he would have no claim to it. She is in no way wealthy, just protecting her house (the bank owns more of it then she does).
So family trust doesn’t always mean immense wealth.
I hope you can sort ths out with your mum silentgoldfish. Best wishes.
Because she was unloading part of her earnings on me and paying less tax on both. I couldn’t pay them myself because the the real world I don’t earn enough to. Without being in the trust (I"m thinking it may be a bad word to use because it clearly means something completely different across the pond) I earn so little that I get about 1500 dollars in overpaid taxes back from the govt come tax time.
There’s no windfall, and no apparant advantage to me, and as far as I can tell a lot to lose if my mum can’t pay off the debt that becomes in my name to lower her taxes.
Sorry silentgoldfish, and sorry that some people jump to some unreasonable conclusions.
Just because the money is in trust, doesn’t mean he has access to it at all. It’s a rather good way to sink someone really - leave them a huge fortune to pay the taxes on, without access to the fortune.
Australian trusts are vastly different from U.S. trusts.
It’s been about 7 - 8 years since I’ve had to deal with them, so I don’t remember much, but the fact that the same word is used in Australia and the U.S. is pretty much coincidence. A person puts their money “in trust” in the same way that a doctor here incorporates himself, to legally reduce taxes. And the tax rate in Australia is something around 35% at $30,000 of income, so we’re not talking small potatoes here.
Hmm… I’m not sure I’m quite getting it (not knowing anything about Oz tax law) but I think it’s working like this. Silent’s mom has his name on paperwork to put herself in a lower tax bracket, but that really it has nothing to do with Silent and it’s not really his money.
Vagued and highly flawed analogy:
Pretend I have stocks that ean me $50,000 which puts me in a really high tax bracket. Now, I ask “Liberal… do me a favour… Would you mind if I put your name on this paperwork too? That way it will look like $25,000 each which will make it a much lower tax bracket and the total taxes will be lower. It’ll still be my money and I’ll pay all the taxes and everything, don’t you worry about that. I just need your name on the trust.”
At least that’s sort of what it sounds like. The trust has been made a “family” on paper only, the earning’s are not actually Silent’s and have nothing to do with him, but the governemtn is asking him for money because his mom is late with her taxes.
Silent: Am I close?
Sorry about that silent. Is your mom pissed that she has to pay more in taxes now or is there some other reason? Do you think this is just a short term flare up and she will change her mind in a week and regret what she said? If she does do you think your relationship will ever go back to being the way it was before?
For the record seeing how some of you people react to a (probably college and probably 19 or so) student being disowned by his mom is really sick and low. I thought I got it bad with my restaurant thread but jesus, kicking a guy whos mom just said she wants him ‘out of the family’ is really fucking low. Who gives a fuck about the minute details, at the end of the day his mom disowned him because of money.
Liberal - I think what he is saying is his mom did it so she’d pay less taxes. She still paid all the taxes but as a result silent no longer gets a return. So silent was losing $1500 a year or more so his mom could save money on taxes.
That’s pretty much it, exactly.
My mum’s big on drama sometimes so maybe it’ll flare down eventually. She’s already done the legal paperwork side of it though. Fortunately I’ve got a very supportive girlfriend so I’m not feeling as lost as I probably would otherwise.
Given Dex’s explanation, I bow out. I can understand the American concept of a trust — money held on behalf of someone until certain criteria are met. But I don’t even understand the apparent Australian concept, which seems to amount to shifting a tax burden to someone else while still keeping the money. Very strange.
No not very strange. Just different.
Different is what makes the world pretty 
But I bet you were the best damn tax break they ever had.
Don’t take any shit.
Silentgoldfish, whatever the backstory to this drama, I’m sorry for the pain you’re going through. Take care.
No, not strange at all, just different nomenclature. Just don’t think of it in terms of the word “trust”. It’s more like an investment. Pretend it’s “mutual fund” rather than “trust fund”.
If you look at my above post, you’ll see what Silent’s mom is doing in a way that sort of work in the U.S. as well. It’s more or less splitting up an investment so it looks like she’s only earning half of what she is in fact earning, so she can be in a lower tax bracket. Rather than having her say “this is MY investment, I earn 100%” she is pretending that Silent is in on the deal so she can say “this is OUR investment, I only make a piddly 50%” (and she isn’t telling them that she’s also still the real owner of the other 50%). Silent isn’t benefitting at all because it isn’t really his money, but meanwhile the government thinks he’s a deadbeat.
Our poor Silentgoldfish! It’s the kind of famly rift you get when you agree to “help out” on paper only.
E.g./ Your brother needs a car loan but can’t gt one without a co-signer. So your brother says, “Please, please co-sign my loan. I swear it will just be MY responsibility. It won’t really have anyting to do with you at all. The loan will actually be MINE, but I need your name on the paperwork.” Then you brother defaults on the loan and YOU get stuck with the bad credit rating too.
If if6was9 took a minute to find out what this was really all about, perhaps he would be such a fuckwad.
Oh, Liberal I forgot… what Silent’s mom is doing is NOT exactly kosher. Hence the dilemma. Legally, if Silent is on the paperwork, then half of the money is his. Maybe that’s why you’re confused about the “strange tax shift”. The case is more like my “brother-makes-you-co-sign-HIS-loan” example (where legally you’re up shit’s creek, because legally the loan is yours as well.)
Bad luck, Silent.
I hope this is just a case of your mom badly overreacting to a silly misunderstanding.
Even this best-case scenario is pretty grim, IMO. The biggest thing a child needs from parents is unconditional love, meaning that a parent’s love should never be used as a bargaining chip in trying to control their kids. Not even for the sake of “drama”.
Perhaps you can salvage a relationship out of this, but this has gotta be a painful kick in the teeth.
oh, and to if6was9, if you’re still lurking, screw you, you petty little turd.