When I sell my IP, do I need to pay off negative gearing i claim from tax return

Hi Nan

The cost base of the property is adjusted by any Capital Allowance claim you have made during the period of ownership.

Your Depreciation Schedule will show you what you have claimed.

Other adjustments such as stamp duty, selling agents fees etc need to be made to the cost base before calculating your Capital Gain.

Cheers

Yours in Finance

Hi Nan,

Cost base is affected by the depreciation you’ve claimed.

Running costs, strata, insurance, all that stuff that are week to week expenses, do not affect the cost base.

Just be careful with renos, that’s when things start getting a little more complicated.

Invest in a good accountant with a property focus.

To answer your original question, its a different equation, its not working out your total ‘negative gearing’ per se.

I’ll run an example.

Bought property for $400k, SD is $10k, legals and other costs in acquisition are $5k. (other costs could be inspections, buyers agent fees)

Cost base is $415k

Now when you sell, say for $500k, you take off your cost of selling – agents commission $10k, advertising and legals $5k. = $485k. So for capital gains purposes your numbers run like this.

$485k-$415k = $70k capital gain

If held for more than a year, than a 50% CGT discount applies. Lets assume you held it for 5 years.

BUT

say you’ve claimed depreciation each year, and it was a new house, so there was $5k worth of dep. each year that you claimed in each tax return.

this gets taken off your cost base.

So, $415k – (5 years x $5k) = $390k.

So now your tax liability is $485k-$390k = $90k capital gain.

You’re still eligible for the CGT discount, but be aware of the extra tax burden when you sell. A lot of rookie negative ‘gearers’ who refinance and then sell, could find themselves with a larger tax burden because of all the dep. claims over the years, that they suddenly may not be able to pay.

Invest in good education and good professionals, e.g. an accountant.

Then

BS

Hi Ben,

say you’ve claimed depreciation each year, and it was a new house, so there was $5k worth of dep. each year that you claimed in each tax return. This gets taken off your cost base.

Just one further question if I may (as this is an area I am quite unsure of) – you mentioned Depreciation needs to be taken off your cost base. Richard mentioned Capital Allowance which is (I believe) not the same as “depreciation”. Isn’t Capital Allowance the cost of building (and yes, renovating) the house and fixtures?

I can understand a reno ADDING to the Capital Allowance claimed, and yes, that would be done via the Dep schedule. e.g. I don’t believe that Carpet is a Capital item, thus it wouldn’t be adjusting the Cost Base…. OR WOULD IT?

Extra words around this subject from yourself, or Richard (or anyone else who knows) would be most welcome,

Benny

AB wrote:

Very well explained Ben..thanks for the example as well. Makes a lot more sense to me(and a lot like me I am sure) now. Any good accountants with a property focus in Melbourne or nearby that anyone could recommend?

Nan wrote:

Thanks Ben, thanks Terry.
Does anyone have good accountant with property focus in Adelaide? Or do anyone use good online accountant who are very good at investment property, etc?

Google Unwin and associates and talk to Mark Unwin. He’s the accountant in Melbourne that took over Steve McKnight and Dave Bradley’s firm. He’s also relatively cheap, about 250 ish an hour or so, he does my accountants, trusts, companies, advice etc. He won’t tear your arm off in costs or get trusts that no one can understand unlike chan and naylor. Give c&n a miss, unless you really want to run those hybrid trusts, but get a second opinion always, you may find you don’t need them.

Tell Mark I recommended you, Ben Stanton, from this forum, they always like referrals, and it looks good for me too. I don’t receive any incentives or anything like that, I just like to support good trades and professionals.

I’m in Perth so don’t worry about not being in the same city or state. Mark does a lot for developers, and can scale down to one property or advise on a 10 townhouse project.

I’ve sacked 4 accountants in the past, Mark is really good.

Cheers
Bs