I read an interesting essay by Rory Robertson from Macquarie bank about house prices and he postulated that one of the reasons house prices was so high was due to where everyone wants to live.  Freeing up land on the urban fringe of large capital cities only tends to reduce prices in areas around there, they dont have much of an affect on the…[Read more]

I recommend you see an appropriately qualified accountant in regards to this as this is a fairly technical area and will come down to the amount of renovations done on the property and would it classify the property as a new residential property for tax purposes.  If you are real keen their is a taxation of propety transactions course i have just…[Read more]

Who is guardian accounting, Im from townsville and have never heard of themwho is the principal and where do they trade

Speak to your accountant as well about buying it in your superannuation fund completely if possible or otherwise you can see if you can structure it as a joint venture with options etc to buy the rest of it as the superfund gets more money. Basically use your SMSF as it gets you a better tax result as it only pay tax at 15% however if you operate…[Read more]

This is one of those funny situations in the tax acts. They say if you are able to amend you can still claim it Hopefully it will be remedied in the future.
if you want a bit of reading go to the ATO website for individuals and look at the capital gains tax 2006 guid

Yep Elka your right, you must live in the property and establish it as a primary place of residence first and its a matter of fact not just getting your mail and electricity and sundry all to that address, they even check the length of time and the amount of electricity you actually use and compare it to a similar PPOR of someone in a similar…[Read more]

Yeah you have missed the pointI was just demonstrating how capital gains and depreciation work when your property is sold if it was bought after 13 may 1997.You get the tax deduction initially which is good however these very deductions claimed then later on adjust the capital gain you haveI have never had any of my clients supply a deprecation…[Read more]

Ha, i just read it in my daily crikey email, didnt realise he published in the australian as well

A litte something i was reading yesterdayHouse prices have again begun to rise after a "correction" hardly worthy of the name, except, perhaps, in the outer suburbs of the former boomtown, Sydney. Household credit and household debt are growing far too strongly for comfort. Taking a longer view, house prices have soared, share prices have…[Read more]

The emerging profit rule is in regards to long term construction contracts in general and is often used for staged developments of residential suburbs.  Im suprised you got a ruling from the ATO in regards to that for this topic.

Discretionary Trusts which you control have always been an unsafe asset protection strategy as the richstar/carey case have rehighlighted.  The problem in his situation is that he was the trustee and the appointor of the trust which meant he had control and the court deemed the trust to be his alter ego and they were able to access his trust to…[Read more]

Okay not sure why you are setting up in a trust as you will have serious problems with the family trust elections and you cannot distribute to people other then family members if you have one, and if you dont have one you cannot claim any tax losses that the business makes.  My recommendation would be a partnership of trusts or just a basic…[Read more]

In regards to a property purchased after may 1997 the following happens in regards to depreciation on plant and equipment and capital works (building)When you sell a property the purchase price is reduced by any depreciable items in it and any capital works deductions you have claimed.  For exampleBob buys an off the plan unit for $440,000 in…[Read more]

Too true, too many crazy people out there giving blatantly wrong advice