My brother just put his single fronted Victorian House to auction yesterday in Melbourne’s West.

Lots of people 30-40 showed up – but not one bid !!

Expected $320K + Vendor bid at 280K and that was it folks…

SuperTed I use corporations and trusts to reduce my taxes, therefor I want things like faster depriciation write offs, changes in CGT or higher amounts in the $0-$6K tax brackets (so it would be great if it went to $0-$12K), as well as the 17% tax bracket.

Rgds.
Lucifer_au

Shirley,

Back to the tax breaks, you claim 30% of the amount paid, however I think it relates to the hospital cover and not the ancillaries. Also, you have a choice of claiming it as reduced payments during the year or on your tax return. Your insurer would be able to tell you whether you are already paying the reduced payments, they also send you a statement at the end of the finacial year that has all the information you need for your tax return.

The second part is the increased medicare levy if you earn over a certian amount and don’t have private health cover. It’s a fairly high amount before you are charged and doesn’t affect the average income earner, but if you are on high salaries then give your insurer a call and check it out with them.

Regards
PK

I totally get this question and agree with the book’s advice. We rent an 800K house in Sydney for the poor landlord’s (had they bought the property today) 2 percent yield.

Meanwhile I have properties which earn me 20 percent yields in good old NZ which more than cover my half of the rent.

And here’s the amazing bit, my properties are worth only a tenth of the value of the place I am living in – the amount of a deposit on where i live now! And the rents from my investment properties completely support me living in a place in Paddington, Sydney which I could no way afford to buy.

mind boggling huh. Cause i did the numbers, see!…..let’s say I bought this 800K place, I would have had to have 80 to put in as a deposit, had interest only of probably 1200 a week, plus maintenance and rates….which would have cost me approximately…hmmm….6-7 times what I am paying now!!!!!! Less the income from my rental properties, make that 8 times!

in case you’re still not convinced-

Like someone mentioned above, Mortgage interest on own home has no tax benefits. It’s paid out of tax-paid dollars, the worst sort! But interest on investment properties is tax deductible.

the gov’t’s way of kicking back investors for helping them solve a problem which if not for investors would mean state housing would have to spend a whole lot more money.

There’s more reasons for it too – i.e. I work from home full time, and so a portion of my rent and bills are also tax deductible. Even if you are an employee you can start a home-based business on the side I think (property investing!!) and take advantage of the tax laws.

In fact… I can’t imagine one single financial reason to own one’s own home first. The only reason is an emotional one as far as I can see.

All of this is just my opinion of course…I love a debate so bring it on. Anybody?

“Coz your landlord might be wanting the same thing.”
Not quite….me wanting to make money, as in, real cash not just ‘equity’.

Landlord wanting to lose money, actual hard cash they pay into their property out of their pocket each week, in the hope of either ‘legally minimising tax’ OR capital gains.

If all things were equal and you for example rented an identical house to the one you had as your investment property, you’d still save with tax write-offs.

cheers-
Mini