Opening a savings account for your kids? It’s great to get them into the habit of saving their tooth fairy money and gifts from granny to experience the joy of compounding early in life.

If the money is genuinely theirs, you as parents don’t need to declare the interest, so don’t give your TFN to the bank. If your TFN is linked to the account, the ATO will be expecting the interest to be declared by you.

If you have parked some of your own funds in the kids’ names however, the ATO view is that control of the money and therefore the interest belongs to you.

If you’re not sure please ask your friendly Halletts team member!