Draft NZ Discretionary Trust Deed

I am establishing a New Zealand discretionary trust whose chief objective is tax planning for a group of business partners. The job is to prepare the trust deed entirely from scratch, ensuring it satisfies the Trusts Act 2019, current IRD guidance, anti-avoidance provisions and any other statutory or common-law requirements that typically apply in New Zealand.

Key points that must be woven into the deed:
• Beneficiaries: a defined class of business partners (with power to add or remove beneficiaries for future flexibility).
• Trustees’ powers: wide discretionary powers over income and capital distributions, investment authority and the ability to appoint agents or delegate where the legislation allows.
• Tax efficiency: clauses that permit streaming of different income categories, maintain settlor control where appropriate without triggering attribution, and allow for effective use of beneficiary current accounts.
• Protective provisions: indemnities, limitation of trustee liability and robust dispute-resolution wording.
• Compliance: plain-English drafting that aligns with the Trusts Act 2019 mandatory duties, default duties (waived or modified where appropriate) and disclosure obligations.

Deliverables
1. Draft trust deed (Microsoft Word and PDF).
2. Brief explanatory note summarising structure, key clauses and any options I should consider before execution.
3. Ancillary documents: simple settlement document, initial trustee resolution and consent forms.
4. One revision cycle after my review.

The work is complete when the deed is ready to be signed and can be lodged with my accountant and lawyer without further edits.