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 "prime" locations everyone wants to live in.  He also mentioned the usual increase in money supply, lower interest rates and sundry.  Anyone who thinks interest rates are higher under labour needs to read more history as john winston howard as treasurer had interest rates at 20% at one stage.  I think personally that things will trundle on very nicely until about late 2008 or early 2009.  Then the share markets will go down hill fast, property will go up as everyone rushes to safetly.  As problems arise with jobs and income property values will drop likely rapidly and i think we might have a decade like the 60s which saw little change in share prices or house prices.
Thats my priceless opinion, just like everyone elses

Who is guardian accounting, Im from townsville and have never heard of them

who is the principal and where do they trade

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

Yeah you have missed the point

I 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 have

I have never had any of my clients supply a deprecation schedule on any of the properties they sell

Its not common in townsville from my experience
jeff

A litte something i was reading yesterday

House 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 rocketed, resource company shares have glowed in the dark, but consumer prices are subdued. The graph shows the extent of the dislocation between asset inflation and consumer inflation in Australian markets.

Take a moment to reflect on the magnitudes involved. Each price index is set at a value of 100 in June quarter 1986. By March 2007, consumer prices have slightly more than doubled, implying annual goods and services inflation of 3.8%. Over the same 21 years, average Australian house prices have risen by 450%, the share price index has risen by a similar 480% while shares in BHP Billiton have soared by a massive 1150%.

While the outperformance of BHP Billiton shares may in part, perhaps large part, ascribed to the "China boom", other asset prices have risen by an order of magnitude faster than prices of goods and services.

This is a common theme around the world. China share prices have been rising almost vertically. In the mighty USA, analysts worry about the next share-price correction and the current house-price correction, and in other nations strong asset inflation co-exists with subdued consumer goods and services inflation.

Extreme asset inflation with subdued consumer inflation is a global phenomenon. Is it also a global problem? This is a big question for modern central banks, and we encourage independent directors to ask RBA governor Glenn Stevens and his team for their answer at today's meeting of the board.

thought it had some relevance to foundations good arguments

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 liquidate the assets to satisfy the creditors.  Realistically he was an idiot as this has never been a safe asset protection strategy and anyone who has assumed this is so is at risk of a severe negligence suit.  The appointor of a trust always needs to be someone who is not at risk of being sued or going bankrupt as they are the controllor of the trust.  As to having a corporate beneficiary and trustee of the trust, you run the risk of s109XA and XB issues of deemed dividend if the company distributions its profits to the compnay for tax purposes but doesnt actually cash flow it and you then take money from the trust as a loan.  This structure may save you from paying more then 30% tax initially but can cause severe issues further down the track.

Goodluck with it

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 example

Bob buys an off the plan unit for $440,000 in 1998and it has plant and equipment of $40,000 and capital works of $120,000.  In 2008 he sells it for $880,000.  The plant and equipment is now worth $10000 and the capital works claimed are $30,000

Cost Base is $440,000 less $40,000 P & E less $30,000 capital works plus incidentals of purchase $20000 equals $390,000
Sale Price is $880,000 less $10000 less incidentals of sale $10000 equals $860,000
Capital gain is $860,000 less 390,000 equals $470,000
Discount gain is 50% so the taxable capital gain drops to $230,000

Thats how a capital gain is determined and thats how capital works and plant and equipment operate and are treated in a capital gain