NZ Herald 9 March 2013

AIndeed. But be aware that you won’t always see growth when you’re not contributing to KiwiSaver. All KiwiSaver funds can be volatile. And in growth funds in particular — which hold mainly shares — your account will grow only when the share markets grow.

Usually they do. The New Zealand and US markets certainly have lately. And looking back 30 years — to get a better perspective — there has been only about a one-in-four chance that a fund invested fully in shares will lose value over a year, as our table shows. What’s more, the longer the period, the less likely you’ll lose ground. At ten years, there’s a mere one-in-56 chance.

Our table also shows that if you’re in a balanced fund that invests half in shares and half in bonds, the chances of getting the booby prize are lower still, especially over long periods. The 1-in-2109 chance over ten years means you are pretty much certain to see a balanced fund rise over that period.

I’m not saying, though, that you should move to a balanced fund. I agree that if you’re more than 20 years from retirement, a growth fund is likely to give you higher long-term growth.

Still, there are certain to be periods — sometimes lasting more than a year — when your account balance will fall. And every now and then it will fall a lot. When that happens, stick with it.

By the way, you might want to check whether you’ve contributed at least $1043 since July 1 2012. If not, try to reach that total by the end of June so you get the maximum $521 tax credit. And from July, try to contribute $20 a week or $87 a month to maximize the tax credit from then onwards.

AI have a lot of sympathy with the idea that the employer should be held more accountable than seemed to be the case when reading Inland Revenue’s responses last week.

But the department is sticking to its guns. In response to your claim that the employer should be subject to penalties, an Inland Revenue spokesperson says, “The obligation here falls on the employee not the employer. As there is no obligation on the employer under the KiwiSaver Act, they cannot be in breach and therefore subject to penalty.

And in response to your charge that “the employer failed in his obligation to ascertain whether or not IRD needed to be notified,” the spokesperson says, “The employer appears to have met their KiwiSaver obligations in this case.”

Maybe the KiwiSaver Act should be changed. In the meantime, as noted last week, it’s a case of “let the employee beware.”

AGood thought. And other solicitors can also draw up similar trusts. But they might not always work they way you want.

“The problem with this is that the first claim against an estate is under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976,” says Deborah Hollings Chambers QC. “So, if there is a surviving spouse, their entitlement gets considered effectively before the property is transferred into a trust created by a will.”

The same thing happens if your children or others make a claim under the Family Protection Act 1955 — under which wills can be overruled if someone has a moral entitlement to inherit. Such a claim would be considered before the will is put into effect, she says.

“If there is no spouse, and the family are agreed that an inheritance trust is perfectly acceptable, and there is no challenge to the estate, then that will proceed,” says Hollings Chambers. She adds, though, that that simply can’t be predicted. “In my experience the views of relatives can change very rapidly after the funeral is over.”

Still, the Public Trust says these trusts can work well. “Inheritance Trusts are often put in place with the agreement of both spouses to provide a benefit for their children without transferring assets into their names. This provides some protection in the event a child subsequently faces a relationship break-up,” says a Public Trust spokesperson.

AYou’re right, says Deborah Hollings Chambers.

Let’s clarify first that your heritage trust, the inheritance trust in the previous Q&A, and the separate property trusts some lawyers set up are basically all the same. We’re not talking about a type of trust specified within the law, says Hollings Chambers. These are all just trusts set up to achieve a particular purpose.

A trust like this could own a house after the parents die, in which their child and a partner live. If the couple split up, the house wouldn’t be relationship property to be divided with the partner. It would stay in the trust.

Hollings Chambers warns, though, that if you don’t want to share property with your children’s current or future spouses or partners, take care not to include those partners as beneficiaries — either by name or by “status category”. That last bit means you shouldn’t say, for example, “my children’s future partners.”

“To minimise the risk of an attack on the trust in the event of divorce, the partners should not be referred to at all in the trust deed,” she says.

“Historically accountants and lawyers sometimes named spouses in trust deeds for tax reasons.” A family might pay lower tax, for instance, if payments were made to a non-earning spouse. But you could lose more from a claim through the Property Relationships Act than you ever gained from tax.

AYou’re probably right, that many people aren’t aware of the act until too late. There needs to be more info out there. Hopefully this column is helping a bit!

And I agree that it would be good to be able to get an agreement approved in advance. Still, if you can honestly say that your agreement has been drawn up fairly, with both sides fully aware of what it means, you should be reasonably confident it would stand up in court.

I doubt if anyone has measured how many people contract out. But yes, it must be difficult for some people to bring up the idea. A couple of suggestions:

• The dating websites could include a question in people’s profiles: “Are you willing to contract out of the Property Relationships Act?” Would-be partners would know where they stood before even meeting.
• You could say to your loved one: “My darling, I will never ever leave you. But you are so wonderful that many people must be wishing they were the lucky one who has you. One day, you might be tempted away from boring old me. Even though I would be devastated, it would help just a little to know that I wouldn’t also be broke.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do on my romance novel.