Last week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers opened the door to tax reform, promising an overhaul of Australia’s tax system. And family trusts are squarely in the picture.

Treasury is expected to propose higher taxes on trusts to help fund the government’s income tax cuts. The rationale is straightforward: about 1.7 million people received close to $60 billion from trusts last year. Treasury sees this as generous and a growing point of revenue leakage.