Private Trustee Companies
General information
Every New Zealand Foreign Trust requires at least one New Zealand resident trustee. This can be a New Zealand resident individual or a corporation or both. A specially created New Zealand Company is what is known as a corporate trustee (or Private Trustee Company, or PTC). Usually it is a conventional New Zealand Limited Liability Company created with the only purpose - to manage a New Zealand Foreign Trust.
We can establish your very own corporate trustee (or Private Trustee Company) whose function is to govern all matters concerning the foreign trust including dealing with your trust's assets.
Characteristics
Under New Zealand law a Professional trustee (i.e a company such as our trustee company) can be appointed as sole or additional corporate trustee. This gives added protection since under the New Zealand tax law even if the professional trustee does not hold adequate tax records the Trustee Company but not the trust's beneficiaries or settlor can be liable. Thus, even in situations of non-compliance, your New Zealand Foreign Trust is perfectly safe.
Advantages & Tax regulation
The advantages of a corporate trustee include:
- Limited Liability for the PTC's shareholder(s);
- anonymity in that the director and / or shareholder of PTC can be a nominee;
- ability to trade at zero tax rates as contracts can be entered into by the company on behalf of the trust;
- the possibility of transferring assets simply by changing the shareholding structure;
- the company can open bank accounts and do all activities of a normal company but everything it does is done on behalf of the trust. In other words it is considered by others as a conventional New Zealand Limited Liability Company without disclosure of a New Zealand Foreign Trust's name and names of a settlor and beneficiary(s) respectively.
