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Member
Portfolio composition
I have a considerable share portfolio containing a mixture of shares, ETFs investment trusts locally and globally. This is my hobby to administer. I have retired and now becoming concerned that if I was not around my wife or daughters will have no interest in administering and maintaining this type of portfolio. Of course I could hand it over to a full broker but the fees I would find hard to justify. The alternative is to simplify the portfolio and have a handful of ETFs. I would be interested to know how others handle this for the long term. Also, is there a point to have investments in a trust?
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Member
yes, not interesting in buying specific shares, so will need to keep strategy simple. I would be interested to know how others handle this
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Originally Posted by voltage
I have a considerable share portfolio containing a mixture of shares, ETFs investment trusts locally and globally. This is my hobby to administer. I have retired and now becoming concerned that if I was not around my wife or daughters will have no interest in administering and maintaining this type of portfolio. Of course I could hand it over to a full broker but the fees I would find hard to justify. The alternative is to simplify the portfolio and have a handful of ETFs. I would be interested to know how others handle this for the long term.
Voltage, brokers will charge different fees depending on what service they offer you. You don't have to go the whole hog and have a full quarterly rebalance every quarter at full service fee level. You could start with an instruction only oversight (i.e. acting on your instruction). That should be much cheaper. If neither your wife or daughters have a particular aptitude for managing investments, then at some stage down the track the portfolio could move to a more 'fully managed' level.
You might start with putting just a small portion of the portfolio of what you own under 'broker management'. Find a broker, more towards your daughters' age group than yours. Then introduce your wife and daughters to them to see if they are comfortable with dealing with that person. Your wife and daughters don't need to be investing experts themselves. But it would be helpful to build up their knowledge to the extent they know what questions to ask. If this broker in tandem with you are able to explain to them why you have structured your portfolio the way you have, then hopefully they will figure out, for example. that panic reacting to every short term itch or TV headline is not the way to manage an investment portfolio.
Once they learn to trust a competent broker, this should take a lot of worry out of their heads in the future, and yours right now.
Also, is there a point to have investments in a trust?
If the ETFs you own in your own name are overseas domiciled - possibly. Although NZ has abolished death duty, it still exists in the UK and USA, for example. So you may find your estate gets stung by overseas jurisdictions if the lawyers have to write to a registry overseas and say you have died and can you please transfer those shares to your wife's or daughters' names. By owning overseas shares in the name of a trust all the transfers of ultimate ownership can be done within NZ.
SNOOPY
Last edited by Snoopy; 26-05-2019 at 09:14 PM.
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Thank you Snoopy, very enlightening.
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Originally Posted by Snoopy
Voltage wrote: "Also, is there a point to have investments in a trust?"
If the ETFs you own in your own name are overseas domiciled - possibly. Although NZ has abolished death duty, it still exists in the UK and USA, for example. So you may find your estate gets stung by overseas jurisdictions if the lawyers have to write to a registry overseas and say you have died and can you please transfer those shares to your wife's or daughters' names. By owning overseas shares in the name of a trust all the transfers of ultimate ownership can be done within NZ.
I should add that if an NZ broker holds shares on your behalf in a UK or USA domiciled share entity, those should be held in a broker nominee company here in NZ. If they are not held in your name, that means the broker should be able to get around any overseas death duty issues. And that means no need to set up your own trust in NZ to get around overseas death duty issues.
In the USA at least, death duties start at quite a high net worth level for US citizens. But for overseas holders owning US based assets, the level where death duties kick in is much lower.
SNOOPY
Last edited by Snoopy; 27-05-2019 at 09:14 AM.
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Originally Posted by voltage
IAlso, is there a point to have investments in a trust?
Having your investments in Trust could increase complications but the potential advantages are being able to distribute trust income to beneficiaries in the most tax efficient manner you like. Also depending on how you did your gifting it may be advantageous if you or your wife require long term care and apply for a taxpayer subsidy for long term care. Outrageous that taxpayers would pay to protect your children's inheritance but I believe it does happen.
I have the same problem getting my kids to care about such things and I prefer to not discuss finances too much with my wife as she is more likely to spend now and worry later, terrible not sharing with my significant other, I know but it helps us stay together.
Have you ever considered that property/investments in Trust for most discretionary family trusts the kids are the final beneficiaries with the parents discretionary beneficiaries. Once the kids are old enough to look after themselves there is not much preventing them from asking for their property. As trustee you are only managing it on their behalf. Have only heard of one case where this happened but will be interesting to see if this happens more with the proliferation of Trusts in NZ. Your kids would have to be rotten to destroy a family over money but it is theoretically possible.
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Member
Thanks for all the comments, nothing is straight forward. Snoopy, what are acceptable custodial fees?
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Originally Posted by voltage
Snoopy, what are acceptable custodial fees?
0.5% on the value of the portfolio per annum? I think most brokers have a minimum charge as a dollar amount though.
SNOOPY
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I can't see how holding ETFs or US equities directly by a NZ resident IN THEIR OWN NAME would be beneficial from a tax perspective. NZ has that nasty FIF (FDR Comparative Rate etc) calculation to tax paper gains (with no carried forward on years for losses). Furthermore the risk of US's estate death taxes which from what I recall, has no exemption limit that US residents have (ie. $10M). I think it's a flat rate tax of 33% of total value to non-resident account holders.
The structure of NZ's FIF is to deter direct ownership of foreign share investments and allow the Kiwi Saver funds to handle that for NZ investors.
Having the investments in a trust also creates complications ; if in US, registration and reporting may be required to the IRS by the US broker. Furthermore there may be limits what the beneficiaries can do in the trust. The lawyers and accountants love to collect their annual administration fees on trusts. To the small guy, trusts offer no real benefit.
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