Seven reasons why you should use a corporate trustee for your SMSF

Like most professional advisers, we are strongly of the view that a self-managed superannuation fund ("SMSF") should have a corporate trustee. This article looks at the trustee requirements for SMSFs and sets out a number of reasons for preferring a corporate trustee.

An SMSF may either have a sole corporate trustee or individual trustees. If the SMSF has a corporate trustee, then each member must be a director of the company and the company may not have any other directors. Similarly, with individual trustees the members must generally be the only trustees.

The decision as to whether an SMSF has a corporate trustee or individual trustees needs to be made at the time that the fund is set up. While it is possible to change the trustee structure later, it is not a simple or a cost-free exercise to do so.