Hi Guys

I am heading to Osaka next week. If you will be in town let me know. Prob won't get to kyushu though.

no, i am a lawyer with an interest in tax.

Or tell the neighbour that you can forward their email onto the tenant if they wish.

Buy a property for tax reasons is not a good way to proceed. You should be buying if it is a good investment and taking into account any tax isues as well.

Whether you should use cash or borrow also depends on a number of factors – not just tax. One consideration is if you use cash you would be saving 6.5% in interest you would have been paying to the bank if you borrowed – so by keeping your cash can you get a better return than this?

A trust is a legal arrangement best done by a person who knows what they are doing – lawyer and/or accountant. Lawyer better really as there are a host of legal issues, but you may need some tax advice too.

I think tax planning is most important with considerations of asset protection and planning for further investments.. Probably need a tax adviser and lawyer

I was on a mobile device when i wrote the above, so let me elaborate why you should not use a company:
1. No 50% CGT discounts for companies
2. Income of a company does not retain its character. Capital gains will be passed on as dividends to shareholders – which may not help a shareholder who has a capital loss from another investment for example.

A better way to join with someone is to use a unit trust with a company as trustee and the units owned by the investors – who could then use a discretionary trust to own their units depending on the circumstances.

1.  yes
2. yes, if you rent it as furnishe
3. could possibly be CGT depending on circumstances
4. yes. which state/city are you in?

Yes. But just make sure the bank won’t class it as a missed repayment and default

Often those socalled specialises aint really specialists but just sales people who get kickbacks from referring to others.

One of my friends signed up with an expensive accountant with inhouse fin planners an borkers where they all work together etc etc. But in reality it is a just an average accountant who refers loans to his local bank an who also has a distant referral relationship with a fin planner.