May 2026
The Federal Budget has wealthy families rethinking how private capital is structured in Australia. In a recent piece from The Australian Financial Review, Alvia CEO Nathan Robertson spoke about why the combined effect of the changes has the high-net-worth segment on edge.
The article focuses on three measures that have particularly unsettled wealthy families: a minimum 30% tax rate on capital gains, the loss of credits flowing from trusts to bucket companies, and the inclusion of pre-1985 assets in the CGT net for the first time.
“Families are genuinely alarmed, not just by any single measure but by the combined picture,” Robertson told the AFR. “Trusts, CGT, negative gearing and Division 296 all moving in the same direction inside 18 months. That tells private capital something about how it’s viewed in Australia, and the message is hard to ignore.”
On the trust changes specifically, Robertson said the bucket company strategy that has been a fixture of family wealth planning for decades is now in serious doubt.
“If corporate beneficiaries are denied the credit for trust-level tax, you get double taxation of the same income, which kills the rationale. Most families will use the three-year rollover window to restructure out.”
He expects significant restructuring across the high-net-worth segment over the next 18 months as families use the transition windows to plan, rather than rushing to sell.