u/Dismal-Ad8979

Hey guys, I’m pretty new to all of this and trying to wrap my head around how taxes work in QLD when it comes to income from prop firms.

From what I understand, payouts are usually performance-based and sometimes paid in things like USD or even crypto (like USDT). How does that get treated for tax purposes in Australia/QLD? Is it just considered normal income at your marginal rate, or is there anything different about it?

Also, for those of you who are already doing this, what kind of setups are you running to stay compliant but also reduce tax as much as possible? For example:
\- Do you operate as an individual or set up a company/trust?
\- Do you keep funds in crypto vs converting straight to AUD?
\- Any common deductions or strategies people use in this space?

Not trying to do anything dodgy, just want to understand how people are structuring things properly and efficiently.

Appreciate any insights 🙏

Hey guys, I’m pretty new to all of this and trying to wrap my head around how taxes work in QLD when it comes to income from prop firms.

From what I understand, payouts are usually performance-based and sometimes paid in things like USD or even crypto (like USDT). How does that get treated for tax purposes in Australia/QLD? Is it just considered normal income at your marginal rate, or is there anything different about it?

Also, for those of you who are already doing this, what kind of setups are you running to stay compliant but also reduce tax as much as possible? For example:
\- Do you operate as an individual or set up a company/trust?
\- Do you keep funds in crypto vs converting straight to AUD?
\- Any common deductions or strategies people use in this space?

Not trying to do anything dodgy, just want to understand how people are structuring things properly and efficiently.

Appreciate any insights 🙏

So a coworker approached me about a side hustle involving an algorithm he built and a prop firm. Wanted to get some outside opinions because I don’t know much about algo trading or prop firms.

The setup:

Met this guy at work (construction). We got talking about side hustles and when I mentioned I used to do options trading he showed me his MT5 account with around $194k in it. Claims he started with $20k, spent a year developing a gold trading algorithm, and has been running it for 13 months — growing $20k into $200k in that time, making $500-$1k USD a day.

For what it’s worth, he came across as genuinely trustworthy. Stereotypical Aussie family man, former mortgage broker, says he has a strong finance background. Not the type you’d immediately suspect of anything dodgy.

The proposal:

He wouldn’t give me the bot even when I offered to pay for it. Instead he pitched this: there’s a prop firm called “The Concept Trading” that he was planning to use once he hit $200k. It apparently requires a $20k USD initial investment after passing a demo challenge — which he says is different from normal prop firms.

His idea: I put up the $20k (taking on all the risk), he provides the algorithm, and we split the profits.

What he did to build my confidence:

Set up a demo MT5 account and sent me the login. The bot has been running on it for 2 days and is up $1.7k. It trades gold only, runs 24/7, and makes hundreds of small trades a day that add up.

Why I’m second guessing it:

•	After researching I learned demo accounts behave nothing like live accounts — so the demo performance means very little

•	That original $194k account? He never proved it was real. Could easily be another demo. I didn’t know enough about MT5 at the time to check

•	I asked him to connect his account to Myfxbook so I could verify the track record — he refused

•	I asked for the investor password so I could view the account in read-only mode — he said he’d think about it and never followed up.

What do you guys think? Is there a legit version

of this, or are the red flags obvious to people who know this world better than me?