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Taxpayers will be no clearer on what service trust arrangements are allowed and what are not allowed as a result of the ATO's eagerly awaited ruling, the National Tax & Accountants' Association says. Under a service trust arrangements, a [professional firm pays a fee to a related trust or company for the provision of office staff and other services. The arrangement is used to provides asset protection and may often minimize tax. NTAA legal counsel Robert Warnock says after months of confidential consultation with industry, the draft ruling is a "non \event". "It provides very little practical guidance on what arrangements will be acceptable to the Tax Office; it is mainly legal mumbo jumbo," he says. "It basically says that if the service fees paid are commercially realistic then they are likely to be deductible. But it does not provide any guidance on the Tax Office's view of what is ‘commercially realistic'. We specifically asked the Tax Office to include examples of typical common arrangements but instead the examples included, we believe, are not representative of the majority of service tax arrangements. "The Tax Office has said it will issue a booklet in a few weeks time with further information - let's hope this offers more practical guidance than the draft ruling."