Asset protection advice from accountants who check every threat

Most people who come to us about asset protection are worried about one thing: a lawsuit, a failing business, a shaky marriage. Our job is to check the other four. In practice the threat that does the damage is rarely the one the client walked in worried about. It's the will that doesn't control the family trust, the trustee company that serves two trusts, or the personal guarantee nobody remembered signing.

This page explains how our asset protection service works: the five threats we test, the strategies we use against each, what you get, what it costs and where the limits are. If you want the background first, our guide to asset protection strategies in Australia covers the concepts in more depth. If you're also redesigning your whole group, start with business structuring and asset protection.

Who needs an asset protection accountant?

You probably do if two things are true: you have built up real wealth, and something you do every day carries risk that could reach it. The people we see most:

• Company directors, especially those who've signed personal guarantees for leases, finance or supplier accounts
• Doctors, dentists, engineers, architects and other professionals who can be sued personally, whatever their insurance says
• Builders and tradies, where one bad job or one failed developer can sink a business
• Business owners who hold property or shares in their own name, so a business claim can reach their investments
• Parents planning to pass wealth on, who want it to reach their grandchildren rather than a former son-in-law or a creditor
• Anyone starting a second relationship who brings a business, a trust or significant assets into it

You probably don't need much beyond insurance if you're a salaried employee with a home, super and modest savings, no business and no guarantees. We'll tell you that on the first call.

What are the five threats we test?

We build every review around five threats. Each one reaches your assets by a different route, so each needs a different fix. Protection against one can even make another worse: a trust that keeps assets away from creditors can still be pulled into a property settlement if you control it alone.

What strategies do we use against each threat?

BPAG's advisory team works from an internal playbook of more than 40 asset protection and tax strategies, checked against current law as at October 2026. Here they are grouped by threat, in plain English. Not every strategy suits every family. Most clients need four or five of them, not forty.

Threat 1: Business failure, insolvency and lawsuits

• Ring-fence the trading entity. The company that signs contracts and employs staff should own as little as possible. Premises, plant and spare cash sit in separate entities.
• One trustee company per trust. If one company is trustee of both a trading trust and a property trust, trading creditors can reach the property through the trustee's right to be repaid from trust assets. A separate trustee company for each trust closes that route.
• Hold investments in a discretionary trust. A beneficiary of a discretionary trust has no fixed right to anything until the trustee decides, so a beneficiary's personal creditors generally have nothing to take. That only holds if the trustee stops distributing to a beneficiary who gets into trouble.
• Keep the home in the lower-risk spouse's name, where that's the right call for the family. We cover the trade-offs in our guide to protecting the family home.
• Use super as a protected store of wealth. Regular contributions to a regulated fund, made while solvent, are generally protected in bankruptcy. Assets bought entirely with protected money, such as a super lump sum or life insurance proceeds, can stay protected if the money trail is kept clean.
• Prove solvency before every transfer. Bankruptcy law presumes you were insolvent at the time of a transfer if you didn't keep proper books. Up-to-date financial statements and a solvency file on the day of the move are cheap insurance.

Threat 2: Relationship breakdown

• Separate control from benefit. Courts look at who can actually control a trust. A child who will inherit a family trust shouldn't hold the appointor role alone. Joint or independent appointors and trustees put the wealth further from a child's future property settlement.
• Check the deed before changing control. Courts have struck down attempts to change an appointor because the deed's variation power wasn't wide enough. A solicitor reads the exact words first.
• Turn "Bank of Mum and Dad" gifts into documented loans. A gift to a child for a house deposit usually lands in the child's property pool. A written loan, ideally secured by a registered mortgage, is far easier to recover.
• Get a family lawyer early. Before a second marriage, or before adult children enter the family business, a binding financial agreement may be worth discussing. We prepare the entity and valuation schedule the lawyer needs. Our guide to trusts and family law explains the risks.

Threat 3: Death, incapacity and estate challenges

• Testamentary trust wills so an inheritance arrives inside a trust, not in a beneficiary's own name.
• Valid super death benefit nominations, checked against the fund's rules, so super goes where you intend.
• Enduring powers of attorney so someone you trust can act for you, including in your SMSF, if you lose capacity.
• Succession clauses for every trust and company, because your will doesn't control them.
• Steering clear of near-death schemes. Gift-and-loan-back arrangements and promissory-note "estate stripping" schemes have been set aside by courts where they were used to defeat family provision claims. In NSW, certain assets outside the estate can be clawed back into a claim.

This is a large area on its own. Our succession and estate planning service covers it in detail.

Threat 4: The ATO

• Director penalty protection. Directors can become personally liable for a company's unpaid PAYG withholding, GST and super. Lodging on time limits the exposure. Since 1 July 2026, under Payday Super, super must reach each employee's fund within days of every payday, so late super now shows up faster.
• Distributions that hold up. Trust distributions must follow the deed and survive section 100A, or the trustee can be taxed at 47%. See our guide to trust distributions and section 100A.
• Family trust election check. If your trust has made one, a distribution outside the family group triggers family trust distribution tax at 47%.

Threat 5: Governance

• Annual 30 June resolutions with a record of what the trustee considered. Trustees must genuinely consider the beneficiaries, and a resolution copied from last year without that thought is far easier to challenge.
• Watch vesting dates. Most family trusts end on a fixed date. An approaching vesting date can trigger CGT on everything the trust owns unless it's dealt with in time.

How exposed are you? A quick self-check

Each "yes" is a reason to talk to us.

Why does 30 June 2027 matter for asset protection?

Because moving an asset into a protected structure is a sale for tax purposes, and the tax on that sale is about to change.

This is law. Under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, from 1 July 2027 the 50% CGT discount is replaced by cost-base indexation for growth that accrues from that date, for individuals, trusts and partnerships. Individuals also face a new 30% minimum tax on certain capital gains from that date. Growth up to 30 June 2027 keeps the current rules. The detail is in our guide to the 30 June 2027 tax changes.

What that means in practice:

• If your assets are already in the right structure, you don't need to sell anything. The law treats you as selling and buying back at market value at that point and defers the tax. You need a good valuation on file.
• If assets are in the wrong name, moving them before 30 June 2027 can cost less. Any gain is taxed now, but with the full 50% discount and, for eligible business assets, the small business CGT concessions. After that date the arithmetic changes. Stamp duty still applies in most states and has to be in the model.

This is not law. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026, introduced on 14 October 2026, proposes a 30% minimum tax on discretionary trust income from 1 July 2028, plus rollover relief from 1 July 2027 for families who restructure out of a trust. We model it for every trust client, but we won't move assets on the strength of a Bill. See our guide to discretionary trust tax changes.

Worked example: a surgeon with shares in her own name

Hypothetical, rounded. Not advice for your circumstances.

Say a surgeon holds a $900,000 share portfolio in her own name, bought for $500,000 more than a year ago. Her spouse is a teacher. She is insured, but a claim above her limits could reach the portfolio.

That's real money, so it isn't automatic. If she is close to retiring, has low claim risk or would need the cash soon, staying put and getting a 30 June 2027 valuation may be the better answer. If she has 15 more years of practice ahead, protection and future income splitting may be worth far more than the tax. The model makes the decision visible. Note too that the proposed 2028 trust tax would change the future-growth row if it passes.

What can't asset protection do?

• It can't be done once trouble arrives. Transfers for less than market value can be clawed back by a bankruptcy trustee for up to five years, and transfers made to defeat creditors can be undone with no time limit.
• It can't beat a personal guarantee. The bank or landlord comes straight to you.
• It can't hide a trust in a separation. If you control it, expect it to be in the conversation.
• It can't be bought off the shelf. Seminar schemes that "strip" equity from a home or empty an estate on paper are exactly what courts set aside. We'll review anything you've been sold before you sign.

How does an asset protection review work with BPAG?

1. Free strategy call. You tell us what you own, whose name it's in, what you do and what worries you. If insurance and a simple setup are enough, we'll say so.
2. Fact gathering. You upload documents from your phone. No portal password. Our meeting file note agent writes up the call so nothing you tell us is lost.
3. Structure and threat map. We draw every entity, owner, trustee, appointor, guarantee and loan, then score each against the five threats. Our trust deed agent summarises each deed and flags the appointor, variation powers and vesting date for your accountant to confirm.
4. Costed options. For each fix we model the CGT, stamp duty, ongoing tax and running costs. Our CGT agent and state taxes agent do the first pass; a qualified accountant checks every figure.
5. Written advice. A plain-English report ranking what to do first, signed by the accountant who advised you.
6. Legal work in step. We brief your solicitor on deeds, loan agreements, mortgages, wills and financial agreements, and a licensed financial adviser on anything involving super contributions or insurance.
7. Implementation and upkeep. We handle registrations, transfers, valuations and the tax returns that record the move, then recheck the map each year.

This all runs on Nagaris, the practice platform BPAG is built on. The AI agents draft; qualified accountants review and sign off, and nothing goes to you, your solicitor or the ATO without a person approving it. Client data is stored in Australia.

"We have been working with Ray and the fantastic team at BPAG Accountants for several years, and it has truly been the best decision for our company… Their invaluable support has saved us a great deal of money and time." Susan McKendry, Google review

What does it cost?

The review is a fixed fee, quoted before we start, based on the number of entities, properties and people involved. Implementation is quoted separately once you've chosen what to do, and the solicitor's fees for the legal documents are their own.

Ongoing, most protected groups sit on one of our fixed-price plans; see our pricing. The Fractional CFO plan, from $499 per week + GST, includes proactive annual tax planning, which is where we revisit your threat map every year.

The honest point: the cheapest protection is often the simplest. Good insurance, no unnecessary guarantees, a company for the business and the home in the right name will cover a lot of families. We don't sell complexity you don't need.

What should you send us?

• A list of everything you own and whose name it's in: home, investment properties, shares, crypto, business interests, super
• Every trust deed and deed of variation, and company constitutions
• The last two years' financial statements and tax returns for each entity
• Loan documents, leases and anything you've personally guaranteed
• Insurance schedules (professional indemnity, public liability, management liability, life)
• Wills, enduring powers of attorney and super death benefit nominations
• Any family loans to children, and any shareholder, partnership or financial agreements
• Anything a promoter or seminar has offered you

Where to next?

We design, model and implement; your solicitor prepares the deeds, loan agreements, wills and financial agreements, and a licensed financial adviser handles super contributions and insurance. We brief both, so you're not the go-between. If you're setting up from scratch, our business structure advice service covers choosing and registering the entities, and our family trust setup service covers the trust itself.

General information only, current as at 18 October 2026. It is not personal tax, legal or financial product advice and doesn't take your circumstances into account. Talk to us before you act. Where a recommendation needs a licensed financial adviser or a solicitor, we work alongside them.