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While tax accountants, financial planners and business and property valuers are all expected to be kept extremely busy due to the added complexity being introduced by Labor’s new tax regime, family lawyers might also need to be braced for more work in the years ahead.

RELATED: Baby boomers urged to rethink $4.9 trillion Gen Z inheritance trend

Hill believes that regular Australian families will likely be the ones mostly captured by the new rules while the wealthiest individuals will continue to find workarounds and exotic structures to minimise their tax.

“They’re already talking to their financial planners and their estate planners about what to do. There’s no doubt they’ll be the ones who find a way through,” he said of the wealthiest Australians.

“The ones who won’t are probably the middle class. People who leave an estate with one or two properties, some shares in a portfolio and some money in a term deposit – those are the ones who are probably not going to undergo complex estate planning.

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“Unfortunately it means that what may result is the testator’s intentions may not be carried through for a multitude of reasons,” Hill claimed.

He gave an example of someone who has two children who they want to provide equally for. If they had $2 million in shares and $2 million in property and they decide to give one child the home and the other the shares, it’s likely the shares will be taxed more heavily.

“One child receives an asset class that is heavily taxed in the new system and they actually receive a lot less in their hand, so they’re going to feel they’ve been shorted, and they’re probably going to want to contest,” Hill said.

“Although the changes are drastic… [in these cases] it widens the potential battleground for wills and the categories of people who would otherwise not be thinking about claiming against an estate, because it just changes the nature and value of estates.”

So-called ‘death tax’ could accelerate ‘living inheritance’ trend

The expected changes have some in the industry expecting more retired Aussies to pass on their wealth while they’re still alive. Findex financial adviser Jonathan Scholes told Yahoo Finance he thinks it will accelerate the ‘living inheritance’ trend he is already seeing among clients.

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“If that change goes through, I think it’s going to trigger every client, basically, who’s got some wealth behind them, reviewing their estate plan and saying: Is this something we do before we leave the planet or something we do after we leave the planet?” he said.

“And I think there’s going to be a lot of people that are going to start thinking about going; ‘let’s do it earlier’.”

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A charity has announced its new chair following the retirement of its founder.

Peter Neville worked for more than five years to set up Guernsey Community Savings, which first opened its doors in September 2020 to support people who were not able to access mainstream banking, staff said.

Former banker James Ellis is taking over the role. Neville said: “James brings exactly the right blend of financial services experience, charitable involvement and community understanding.”

The charity had helped about 200 people, who would otherwise have been excluded from the financial system access, to accounts and linked debit cards, and offered money‑management guidance to many more, staff said.

Neville said: “The initiatives now being discussed, together with the additional features offered by the new money‑transmission platform, reassure me that James’s vision aligns perfectly with the aims we set in those early days.

“I wish the board and GCS staff every success as they take the charity forward.”

Ellis said: “‘The creation of Guernsey Community Savings in 2020 was only possible because of Peter’s unique set of qualities that enabled him to create a talented team and the structure to tackle the issues facing the financially excluded in our island.

“I was delighted when he asked me to continue with his work and further expand his vision, which I share, to provide help in the form of bank accounts, debit cards and financial education and to realise our ambition to provide grants and soft loans where needed.”

He added he was pleased Neville agreed to remain involved with the charity as life president.

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Hong Kong’s first five-year plan will map out concrete paths to address the city’s shortcomings and magnify socio-economic benefits, including how artificial intelligence can create quality jobs, the financial chief has said a day ahead of the public consultation on the blueprint.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Sunday that the key task for the blueprint would be the upgrading and transformation of the city’s economy, vowing to press ahead with the Northern Metropolis megaproject and make it a “spatial carrier for deploying emerging and future industries”.

“Hong Kong’s five-year plan aims not only to provide greater momentum for economic development and better application of technology, but also to promote more inclusive and equitable development in society, provide residents with more quality employment opportunities, and create a better life,” he said in his weekly blog.

The efforts to formulate Hong Kong’s first five-year plan are led by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, and the blueprint is expected to be finalised by the end of 2026.

Lee said last week that the public consultation for the outline would begin on Monday, confirming an earlier South China Morning Post report.

The public can submit views via dedicated websites during the two-month period, and the government would hold multiple sessions to gather input from various sectors, including lawmakers and industry representatives.

The blueprint aims at aligning Hong Kong’s development with China’s 15th five-year plan, which positions the city as an international hub for finance, shipping, trading, innovation and technology, offshore yuan and global talent.