The changes to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and negative gearing announced in this year’s Budget and which are now law; are quite monumental, and they will affect a lot of taxpayers. No more so than in relation to the abolition of the CGT 50% discount and the related changes for capital gains that accrue from...

From 1 July 2027, the way capital gains are taxed for individuals, trusts and partnerships is set to change. The 50% CGT discount will be replaced by cost base indexation and a new 30% minimum tax on real gains. Many people assume they must sell before the deadline to keep the discount, but this is...

Are you an employee thinking of putting some of your pre-tax income into superannuation to boost your retirement savings? This is known as salary sacrifice, and the good news is that it can benefit you and your employer. What is salary sacrifice? An effective salary sacrifice agreement (SSA) involves you as an employee, agreeing in...

With the Government set to impose a minimum 30% tax on discretionary or “family” trusts from 1 July 2028, it’s probably time to start thinking about what you should do about any existing family trust you have. And this could include giving serious consideration to what may be involved in using the proposed concessions to...

One of the many areas where the big changes to negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax may have an effect is where you use the “absence concession” to allow you to “continue to treat” your home as your CGT-free main residence during an extended absence from the home – including where you rent it out...

  With the first of the Budget legislation having been introduced into Parliament, perhaps it’s time to consider more closely how they may affect you,  and what you can do about it – especially in relation to the CGT discount changes. So, looking at the CGT discount first, if you already own an asset you...

If you are a foreign resident for tax purposes when you sell your Australian home, you cannot claim the usual capital gains tax exemption on it. This applies no matter how long you lived in the home. It applies even if you were only a foreign resident for a short time before the sale. And...

The Government has legislated major changes to capital gains tax (CGT). From 1 July 2027, the 50% CGT discount for individuals, trusts and partnerships will be replaced. In its place comes cost base indexation and a new 30% minimum tax rate on capital gains. How the 30% minimum tax works Under the current rules, you...

If you have a family trust there are two recent major (very major) things that have happened that will affect the way they will be taxed in the future. The first is the announcement in the Budget that trust income will now be taxed to the trust at a minimum rate of 30% – regardless...

Discretionary trusts have been a familiar feature of Australian business life for generations, partly due to their suitability for asset protection and retirement planning, as well as their ability to legitimately achieve lower overall tax rates through income splitting, where trustees of discretionary trusts allocate all or part of the trust income to associates who...