In this article you will learn how to generate a Trust tax return and how to lodge it.

• View a Trust Tax Return
• Sections of a Trust Tax Return
• Validate a Trust Tax Return
• Resubmitting a Trust Tax Return

A Tax Agent, Fund Administrator or Access controller can lodge the Tax return.

If you haven't already set up the  Tax Agent under business contacts, you will need to have a valid Tax agent setup with the  Tax agent number, CAA and ABN to electronically lodge. Please watch the following video for more information.

View a Trust Tax Return

Navigate to fund level > Periodic Processing > Period Updates

1. Run a Period Update as at 30 June
2. Distribute Retained Earnings
3. Run Tax Finalisation
4. Click View Tax Return button
   
   
   
   

After clicking on 'View Tax Return' a new tab will automatically open. By default, you will land on the Form Preparation tab. This will list the following five schedules. 

1. Annual Return (Tax Return)
2. CGT Schedule
3. Losses Schedule
4. Rental Schedule
5. Trust Income Schedule

You may edit, save and complete the data in these forms by clicking on Complete next to each one.

Sections of a Trust Tax Return

The Tax Return Form and all related schedules can be easily navigated by using the sidebar located on the right had side of the screen as shown below:

1. Period of return - the financial year date range 01 July 20XX to 30 June 20XX.
2. Trust information - prefilled from Class. Displays the TFN, Name of Trust, ABN, Postal Address & Contact Details, Election Status, Type of Trust, Tax Payable and EFT Details
3. Income excluding foreign income - prefilled from Class. Can be checked against the Statement of Net Income Report.
4. Deductions - prefilled from Class. Can be checked against the Statement of Net Income Report.
5. Foreign income - prefilled from Class. Can be checked against the Statement of Net Income Report.
6. Overseas transactions / thin capitalisation - Default answers to the questions in this section are 'No' and this is prefilled by Class and should not be changed.
7. Key financial information - Displays all current assets/liabilities and also total assets/liabilities. Can be checked against the Statement of Financial Position Report.
8. Statement of distribution - Majority of data is prefilled from Class. Please note, you should have already selected the Entity Code and the Assessment Calculation Code, when the beneficiaries were set up. Amounts in this section can be checked against the Statement of Distribution report. 
9. Declarations - Majority prefilled from Class. You must manually enter a date in this section and click Save. The Default Tax Agent is prefilled from Business Contacts.
   

Review and complete each schedule by clicking 'Save', click 'Validate' on each form before you proceed to click 'Next Form'.

It is recommended to leave any auto-filled values unchanged unless absolutely necessary. If any auto-filled values are manually changed, this increases the chances for any correlating or dependent fields to no longer match, resulting in validation errors.

For more details on the associated schedules for the trust tax return please refer to our page here

Validate a Trust Tax Return

The next steps will allow you to submit the trust for lodgment:

1. Select Fund View from the view menu dropdown.
   

   Only the Fund view will allow you to validate all the data then submit the return to the Tax View for lodgment.

2. Validate all - This will validate the data on each individual form plus all the inter-form validations e.g. if there is a loss amount in the annual return form that needs to match the amount in the losses schedule it will cross-check to ensure they match as well.
3. Submit - This is enabled after validate all is successful and will submit the return  for lodgment
   
   
4. Status will change to Submitted to Tax Agent once the console refreshes.
   

Resubmitting a Trust Tax Return

If you need to make changes within the Annual Return Form, and any related Schedules after submitting them to the tax agent, you can use the Resubmit button. This will make the Annual Return Form and all related Schedules editable again. You can then make your changes within the forms, save and validate to submit once again.

1. Click the Resubmit button
   
   
2. A pop up screen will open asking you to please confirm:
   
   
3. Use previous submission - resend the same annual return to the tax agent
4. Revert to the latest tax finalisation - this will reflect figures in the latest tax finalisation

If changes have been made or need to be made to the financials within Class, you will need to discard and reset the annual return forms. In this scenario you will also need to rollback your last Period Update and Tax Finalisation, make the required changes and re-run them so that the those changes will automatically flow through to this section.

What's Next?

Learn how to Lodge a Trust Tax Return