Most of the conversations I have right now start with the same instinct from clients. Markets have moved. Inflation is sticky. Rates have stayed higher than people expected. Is it time to change what we own?
It is a reasonable place to start. It is also the wrong question.
The bigger shift this year is not about which assets you hold. It is about the wrappers around them. The 2026-27 Federal Budget, handed down by Treasurer Chalmers on 12 May, did three things at once. Each one rewrites a rule that has held for two decades or more.
Three reforms that compound on each other
The 50% Capital Gains Tax discount has been abolished. From 1 July 2027, capital gains will be assessed using cost base indexation, with a new 30% minimum tax on net capital gains. The asset still produces what it produces. The slice of the return that flows back to you is now calculated differently.
Negative gearing has been restricted to new builds from 1 July 2027. Properties held before Budget night (12 May 2026) keep their current treatment. Everything bought after is governed by a different set of rules. The asset still pays what it pays. The way it sits inside your taxable income has changed.
Family trust distributions to beneficiaries will face a 30% minimum tax rate from 1 July 2028, with three-year rollover relief available from 1 July 2027. The trust still does what it does. The income flowing through it lands on the beneficiary at a different rate.
Each of those reforms, on its own, is something a thoughtful adviser could plan around. The three of them at once is a different problem. They change how compounding actually works at the household level.
The gap I keep seeing
Across the portfolio reviews the BGW team has run since Budget night, the gap that keeps appearing is structural, not selection-based. The investments themselves are usually fine. The trust deed, the timing of contributions, the entity holding the property, the way debt is allocated across taxable and non-taxable income, those are the items needing a deliberate review.
This is not about activity for the sake of activity. Most clients will end up moving very little. The point of the review is to put a frame around what is now optimal versus what was simply inherited from a tax landscape that no longer exists.
Two ways to respond
There are broadly two ways investors are reacting to the reforms.
Adjusting. Changing the weights inside the portfolio. Selling a bit of one thing, buying a bit of another. The implication is marginal. It treats the Budget as a market event, like a rate cut.
Restructuring. Changing the wrappers themselves. Looking at the family trust under the new 30% rate. Looking at debt deductibility under the new negative gearing rules. Looking at CGT timing without the 50% discount. These changes are structural, and they compound over time. Done well, they tend to produce the biggest after-tax improvement most portfolios can reach in a year like this one.
What a deliberate review looks like
In practice, the work breaks into a few clean steps.
- Map the existing structures. Who owns what, through what entity, and against what debt.
- Stress-test each structure against the post-2027 rules. Most issues surface immediately.
- Identify the items where the new rules create either a problem (a wrapper that no longer makes sense) or an opportunity (a window before a rule takes effect).
- Sequence the changes. Some are time-sensitive (the negative gearing transition; the trust three-year rollover relief). Others can be patient.
- Document what stays the same. The discipline of saying "this still works" matters as much as identifying what does not.
Where this lands
If you built your portfolio before 2026 and you have not run a deliberate structural review against the Budget, that is the work I would put ahead of any asset-level change. Not because the assets are wrong. Because the wrappers around them often are.
A 15-minute conversation will usually tell us whether a review earns its place or whether your current structure is already aligned. There is no obligation either way.