Chances are you’re not. Some of them even we find tricky, and we have been doing Depreciation Schedules for over 20 years. If you aren’t doing it properly, your clients might be missing out on deductions. Sure, if it’s just a small factory and the client has just installed a mezzanine and some racking, that’s …

Continue reading "Are you depreciating commercial fitouts correctly?"

We’re not talking here about the Depreciating Assets, or Plant and Equipment, but we’ll touch on them - we have covered these previously. We want to focus this month on the ‘structural improvements’, or Capital Works, additional to an actual building. Some Quantity Surveyors miss them, and that means your clients miss out on some …

Continue reading "What can be depreciated beyond a building?"

It's something we get asked often. You might, too. Our answer is always, 'It depends'. We follow that up with pointing out that the depreciation deduction should not be the main factor in making a purchase decision, though it is a nice deduction to take off the table every year with no need to outlay …

Continue reading "Which has more depreciation? Houses, apartments or commercial properties?"

This is the time of year when we reflect.  On the footy finals, maybe Melbourne Cup, certainly on tax season. There are some common mistakes we see in Depreciation Schedules every year, and this year was no exception. Some of you sent them to us to seek our opinion. So we thought given you would …

Continue reading "What are the common mistakes we see in Depreciation Schedules?"

We have had a few accountants get in touch with us about this lately and we have a theory. That pesky virus stopped people from travelling and we all know the unanticipated consequence was huge interest in property - that discretionary spending money had to go somewhere. So people were renovating properties and building granny …

Continue reading "How do you deal with the disposal of Capital Works in a rental property?"

This is the time of year when we get lots of clients contacting us about the tax treatment of Special Levies that were imposed on them last tax year. Most clients of course think (or hope) a Special Levy payment can be expensed, like sinking fund or admin fund contributions. But we, and you, know …

Continue reading "Do you know how to treat a Special Levy payment?"

You will have clients either doing short term rentals now or seriously considering it.  We don’t just mean Airbnb, of course, but that’s the one people think of when we talk about short term rentals. And when we write about the ‘downside’, we don’t mean the odd glass getting smashed or disappointing stains on a …

Continue reading "Do you know about the downside of Airbnb?"

Are your clients maximising the depreciation on renovations? Chances are they’re not. There can be a lot of depreciation in renovations and lots of people don’t claim it. Why? Sometimes it’s because the property is old and they assume with an old property there is nothing that can be claimed. Sometimes it’s because they think …

Continue reading "Are your clients maximising depreciation on renovations? #5 July 2023"

The depreciation clock is ticking on older investment properties Depreciation will run out soon on some older investment properties, but in the meantime, you'll be surprised at how much depreciation many still have in them. And that applies to residential and commercial properties. We wrote about commercial in our last Something You Didn't Know About …

Continue reading "The depreciation clock is ticking on older investment properties #4 June 2023"

Why are more investors choosing commercial properties over residential? It's a trend we've been seeing for a few years now. Often it's SMSFs buying commercial properties, but also individuals. And of course, people choosing to buy rather than rent a property for their own business. Commercial property has always been popular, partly because tenants often …

Continue reading "Commercial properties have been finding favour with investors recently – #3 May 2023"