Most of our serious farming clients would have a family trust structure. With the farming activities in it also, the trust/corporate structure will almost certainly pay for itself over time. The thing with them is you will usually have a corporate trustee, corporate beneficiary and discretionary trust. That's three separate entities to do accounts and administration for, including annual minutes, financial reports and tax returns etc, plus ongoing bookkeeping for all of them (the corporate trustee has next to no ongoing work, just annual). From there, the natural progression is an smsf and it sounds like between you and your wife you may potentially already have a sufficient super balances to set one up. For a decent accountant, I'd imagine you'd spend $3-4k minimum annually for the trust, corporates and individual affairs, and $2+k annually for an smsf, potentially increasing to $5k depending on complexity of investments/activity etc. Plus there will be setup costs in the first year, probably not far off the annual cost (advise, planning and establishment costs). Very important to get these things setup correctly in the first year.
If you're in central West nsw area by any chance I could recommend a good accountant if you think you need one. Cheers
