Haas Kaplan

Haas Kaplan is the principal of Kallan Lawyers. He is a lawyer and a Certified Practising Accountant, and practises in trust law, tax, estate planning and succession, commercial law and superannuation.

He qualified in accountancy in 1992 and in law in 1997, and has worked in both disciplines. That is the basis of the practice: advice on structures, transactions and succession given by someone who can read the deed and the tax position at the same time, rather than advising on one and leaving the other to somebody else.

Qualifications

Accounting	Bachelor of Business (Accountancy), RMIT University, 1992
Law	Bachelor of Laws, Deakin University, 1997
Professional	Certified Practising Accountant, CPA Australia
Building	Registered Domestic Builder (Unlimited), Victoria, 2009 Registered Builder, Queensland, 2025

Three decades, three professions

Haas has worked in three professions in sequence rather than studied them in parallel.

Fifteen years were spent as an accountant and a CPA running an accounting practice. Tax structures, trust distributions and Division 7A were the daily work over that period, which is the source of the technical depth the firm now brings to trust and tax matters. Sixteen years were spent as a registered builder, delivering more than 150 homes and multiple commercial buildings. The practice today is a law practice, and both backgrounds are brought to it.

Two disciplines, one adviser

Most commercial problems arrive as a document, but they are resolved by understanding what the document does to the numbers: what a trust variation triggers, what a restructure costs, what a loan account means for an estate, which entity should enter a transaction and why.

Advice given without both halves tends to fail at the seam. A deed is varied and a capital gain follows. A company advances money to its owner and a deemed dividend follows. A business is sold on terms that work commercially and badly for tax. Having the accounting and the legal experience in one adviser is what allows those questions to be answered together, and answered before the documents are signed.

Principal practice areas

• Trust law — deeds, variations, control, appointor and trustee succession, vesting
• Estate planning and succession — wills, testamentary trusts, trust and business succession
• Tax law — Division 7A, trust tax issues, restructures, capital gains
• Commercial law — contracts, loan agreements, shareholders and partnership agreements
• Superannuation — SMSF deeds, death benefit nominations, fund succession
• Construction and property — building contracts, disputes, security of payment

Construction: an additional capability

Alongside the commercial and tax practice, Haas is a registered builder in Victoria and in Queensland, with more than 150 homes and multiple commercial buildings delivered. It is a secondary strand of the practice rather than its focus, but it is a real one. Construction disputes are decided on progress claims, variations, extensions of time, retentions, defects and programme, and reading those documents well depends on having run them.

It also shapes the property work. Where a client is acquiring a site or undertaking a development, the questions of which entity holds the land, how the build is contracted, and where the risk sits are one problem rather than three.

Writing

Haas writes the firm's Insights, which deal with technical questions as they arise in practice, most recently the 2026 Budget changes affecting trusts, the fixed trust tests for unit trusts, and the state duty consequences of restructuring.

This page is biographical information. It is not legal advice.