The regulation of trustees in relation to trusts and the taxation of trust income following the coming into effect of the bill in preparation : a comparative study

Abstract

The thrust of this dissertation is to examine the workings of the proposed trust law currently being fine tuned by our legislator. In order to achieve this aim, it was felt appropriate to divide this dissertation into three parts. Part I will give a historical background of the sort of trust legislation which we will have had in Malta up to before the coming into effect of the amendments under examination. It will also seek to determine how trustees will be regulated following the coming into effect of these amendments. It is also the objective of this dissertation to analyse the impact, if any, which these amendments will have on our already ingrained legal principles: hence the need for Part . II of this dissertation. Since the impact of the proposed law on the Civil Code has been discussed in various quarters, Chapter 3 of this dissertation will deal precisely with this issue. Chapter 4 will then give an overview of the effect the proposed amendments are expected to have on other related laws. Part m will then go on to deal with the manner of taxation of trust income. Chapter 5 will analyse closely the manner in which the new law plans to tax this source of income. Chapter 6 will tackle the issue of tax avoidance, a rather preoccupying issue both nationally and internationally. Chapter 7 will then analyse whether double taxation relief is usually applicable to trust income and what the position is proposed to be under the new law. From the above, it may be seen that the bill in preparation endeavours to be as exhaustive as possible on a matter which is an alien concept to our system of law.