r/AusHENRY

I have been getting some conflicting info and I just wanted to run it with the brains trust here.

My situation is for this FY26. I have already added in $120,000 in Non Concessional Super contributions into my Super account this FY. My annual contracting salary is >$270k and so the 12% contributions will soon go over $30k in the month of June.

I do not want to trigger the Bring Forward rule as I wish to contribute the higher $132,500 a year going forward and so I was wondering if the post tax ECC form where I opt in to pay the tax difference (ie. 47%-15%) will ensure that the Bring Forward rule will not be triggered.

Thoughts? Do I need to call the ATO in advance etc?

Side note 1: I didn't mean to add in $120k, it was supposed to be $110k but there was a delay in the $10k increments I was using not showing up in my online display (AustralianSuper) and so I dropped in a bit more then planned.

Side note 2: I spoke to my contracting agency and they said that they could not stop the 12% payments into my super (which makes sense) and so I'm hoping the ECC form I'm thinking of will work but would like confirmation here.

Side note 3: I'm planning to retire soon while maxing my super so this is my strategy to help boost it up.

I am 40 yr old Indian with family in Melbourne working in IT. I have around 150k in super house on mortgage still to pay 400k . Looks like it will take all the way to 60yrs to pay mortgage. Feels like a mistake for me to settle in Australia . Any advice on how to plan retirement

I’m 31 and looking to buy my first Investment Property because I can’t afford to buy a house where I want to live in Melbourne. I’m in the highest tax bracket and was initially very happy to buy an IP in my name and negative gear it. Then buy a second and do the same. After which I would eventually buy a PPOR.

Now with the new changes to the NG and CGT, I’m seeing all kinds of advice online about how to structure my investments. Based on the current proposals I’d be best off buying them under a company. But I’m worried that if I buy them under a company and these proposals don’t go ahead and become law, I’m significantly worse off because I won’t have the NG and CGT that I would if I bought in my own name.

Since I’ve never been through something like this in my lifetime, I’m just looking for advice or happy to hear what other people in my position are doing going forward. Thanks if you’ve gotten this far!

A lot of discussions have been going back and forth about why the changes to CGT are such a good thing and a key argument I keep hearing in favour of it is that capital gains (on stocks) aren't earned income so there's every reason to take it at the minimum 30% from the first dollar.

Well I can see the point people are making and think that we should push the government to extend that tax to all "unearned" income, starting with gambling.

You didn't do anything to earn it, you should give 30% to the government. Lotto, pokies, sports bets, casino, etc.

Update A lot of grumbling but all the arguments boil down to:

1. "I don't like it because that would personally affect me!"
2. "I don't understand the difference between capital gains/losses and negative gearing"
3. "The gambling companies already pay tax so I shouldn't have to"

Looking for recommendations for a good accountant ideally with experience in tech start ups - ideally Sydney based but happy with remote. Specifically an Accountant with experience in startup equity structures, equity vesting, structuring etc.

Currently PAYG on the highest marginal tax rate. Have self-lodged my own tax returns (and my partners) up until now which has been straightforward — but my situation is getting more complex and I’ll likely need an accountant to help me with my personal and (yet to be setup) company financials moving forward.

Quick background:

Joining an early stage Sydney tech startup as an equity owner. Will be holding my shares through a newly incorporated holding company (maybe trust?) and will also receive business income through that entity. Want to make sure the structure is set up correctly from day one — PSI implications, deductible expenses, correct setup etc.

May be converting my PPOR to an investment property in the near future.

Looking for someone who can handle my personal PAYG return, my holding company’s annual return, and potentially my partner’s returns as well — ideally all under one roof for a long term relationship.

Cheers

I have a concentrated AI growth portfolio by design. As inflation picking up again, any tips on how you rebalanced your portfolio or what adjustments you have planned to execute in near term? I wonder if I should liquidate 20% or so to build up dry power.

36/35 couple with upcoming first child.

We’ve been looking to get an IP for a while, with the intention of moving in to become forever PPOR after X years(say 3) before school.
And NG for 3 years in the mean time.

Income: 260-280k/y + 90k/y

PPOR value: 859k
loan 426k, offset 441k.
ETF+shares ~ 80k (won’t touch)

It was the right long term strategy in our head, but didn’t find what we want at our budget for ages, combined with fear with taking on new large debt.

But with the price seemingly coming down a bit to our original range. We pulled the trigger to buy despite missing the budget 🚢!

Now we are going to be sitting on a massive loan of 😰
IP loan: 1.495m (purchase price)
PPOR loan: 370k, offset 293k

Now can’t stop thinking have we made a foolish decision. Should we have waited longer
Would price crash significantly further given everyone’s borrow power will be slashed if you buy IP (already banks are doing it)

(I’ve run a lot of numbers on affordability etc. but still feeling a bit on the edge)
If things gone dog shit, we can sell current PPOR then it would become a more manageable debt right?

Someone tell me it should workout in the long term please.

Howdy.

My goal this year was to sell my PPOR and move to Brisbane CBD. I wanted to rent in Brisbane CBD and invest in outer Brisbane or Sunshine Coast. Was planning to do this around June/July.

My PPOR is a 1-bedroom apartment that is fully offset - worth about 410k. The growth on this has been very minimal, I purchased for $330k in 2014. Seems like an anchor so I wanted to get rid of it.

I am HENRY - income is about 250k pa and aside from my PPOR I have about 110k in ETF's.

Given my high income, rent-vesting was going to be the perfect strategy to allow me to live the CBD lifestyle I want while keeping money in property and continuing to build wealth.

Now I am not so sure what to do. I still want to move to Brisbane CBD - that is a priority for me. But now it seems considerably more expensive without the IP tax refund (which I was perhaps using mental gymnastics to justify the high rent).

Am I looking at it with a wrong perspective? I don't really see many options now for me to build wealth while living in the CBD.

One option might be to turn my PPOR into an IP - but I am not sure the capital gain is there to justify it - the money is probably better off being used elsewhere. The one benefit I can see is that I have the leverage, so I could invest say 80% of the loan value into the ASX or something.

Or maybe I just sit on cash for a while and offset the rent with the interest earned.

I don't really know. Admittedly, I have not made the best financial decisions of late. I had purchased an IP last month for 1M but with all the talks of policy change, I got cold feet and pulled out of the contract during the cool off period. I wanted to wait and see what the budget would be before making such a big investment decision. One week later the property sold for 70k more and two weeks after that the rug was pulled up for investment properties.

Now I'm left kicking myself wondering what to do.

So, my options as I see it...

1. Sell PPOR. Rent in Brisbane and invest PPOR funds into the ASX.
2. Sell PPOR. Rent in Brisbane and sit on cash for a while.
3. Change PPOR to IP. Move offset funds into ASX.
4. Sell PPOR. Purchase PPOR in Brisbane (not ideal as I don't like the idea of owning an apartment ever again. Brisbane CBD may also be short-term).

Any other options? What do you guys think? I appreciate any advice. I am also considering seeing a financial advisor, but not sure it would be worth the cost for my circumstances.

How many of you actually have a succession or continuity plan in place?

Not just "what happens when I retire," but stuff like:

Who steps in if you get hit by a bus tomorrow?

What happens if the premises floods, burns, or you cop another pandemic-style shutdown?

Any plan for your own mental burnout, not just the business side?

Asking because it's one of those things almost everyone agrees is important, but very few people I talk to have actually done it.

If you've thought about it but never pulled the trigger what's stopped you? Cost? Time? Don't know where to start? Feels morbid?

If you've thought about it and did the trigger have you seen or felt any genuine benefits?

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Need recommendations for a FEE-ONLY financial planner who will help with a couple’s FIRE goals.

No bank advisors or commission-based planner.

Especially if you’ve achieved FIRE with the help of these people.

I've been tracking NW in a spreadsheet and it's mostly done the job. It used to track a few bank accounts, super fund, pretty simple. But my financial position has become more complicated, joint finances spread across multiple bank accounts, credit cards, ETFs on multiple platforms, super accounts, a mortgage with loan splits, an offset that fluctuates. The spreadsheet has grown into something that is more cumbersome to update than I'd like, requiring a lot of manual updates.

All that to end up with is a number I loosely trust once a month, patched together from four or five different logins that no longer feels like it tallies back to 0 (I.e. expenses + income equal the delta).

I know most of the discrepancy comes from things like accounting for expenses on the CC but not having paid off the liability yet as it's not due, but surely there's a better way to track these things to keep an eye on my overall financial position?

EDIT: This isn't a daily thing I look at, just a monthly check in

I’m looking for some thoughts on a parcel of AFIC shares I bought for my 9 yo daughter and whether my original tax strategy still makes sense after the recent budget announcement around 30% min tax on capital gains.

A few years ago, I bought AFIC shares in a CommSec Minor Trust account for my daughter (currently 9 years old). As such, the shares are legally held in her name as a minor.

The shares have been on AFIC’s DSSP, so instead of cash dividends, we’ve been receiving bonus shares. My understanding is this means there hasn’t been taxable dividend income each year, but the cost base reduces over time with the bonus shares.

Total Purchases of 2 x $20 parcel:

• 3,198 shares in June 2020 @ $6.12
• 2,440 shares in Nov 2021 @ $8.19
• Total 5,638 shares purchase (~$40k cost).
• Today, I have 6,848 after the DSSP bonus shares (~$45k worth @ $6.63 today).

The original plan was:

• Hold until she turns 18yo as an adult
• Then gradually sell parcels over a few financial years while she has little or no income to minimise any tax liability for her.

AFIC hasn’t exactly performed amazingly. Total purchase cost was roughly $40k, and today the holding is worth only around $45k including all the DSSP bonus shares accumulated over the years (6,848 x $6.30 today = ~ $45k).

Given the recent budget announcements particularly the 30% minimum tax rates on capital gains, I’m now wondering whether I should just sell the whole lot and dump the money into my mortgage offset instead.

A few questions:

1. If I sell now, I assume the CGT event is triggered for my daughter, not me. Is that correct?
2. Does the sale have any impact on my own personal tax return at all?
3. Am I thinking about the tax correctly?
   • Roughly $5k capital gain
   • 50% CGT discount applies (held >12 months)
   • So ~$2.5k taxable gain
   • Then taxed at minor penalty rates (~47%) since she’s under 18

Also, are there any other implications I should be thinking about if realising the gain while she’s still a minor

We’re a family of four who’ve just accepted an overseas work opportunity and are planning to relocate around Q3 this year. We’ll likely be away for 3–4 years and will become non-residents for Australian tax purposes during that time.

We’ve had mixed advice on what to do with our PPOR (Brisbane) and the tax implications, so I’m trying to sanity check our options.

We don’t have a firm plan post-assignment. My partner is Canadian, and there’s a reasonable chance we may end up settling there long term rather than returning to Australia.

From what I understand, if we keep the house and rent it out while we’re overseas, then later sell it as non-residents (if we don’t come back), we could be hit with significant CGT.

Because of that, I’m considering selling the property before we leave and investing the proceeds into a mix of ETFs and HISA/term deposits instead.

My understanding is that as non-residents, tax on shares (particularly capital gains) is minimal or nil in many cases, but I’m not 100% confident on that.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Would selling the PPOR before becoming non-residents generally be the smarter move here, or are we overlooking something?

Appreciate any insights or experiences.

This post is for the community on this subredit.

As many of you have noticed AI made managed and run subreddits are everywhere.

Yesteday i ean into a group called AusPayslips. This entire subreddit is AI. Made by AI. AI postings. Ai comments AI reaponses. Everything. Do not post your details on these subredits. Some of you are smart enough to know that already but this isnt obvious to everyone.

Reddit has signed up with major AI partners and reddit gets searched for relevant information. Subredits are created to mess with these AI results. If enough bots comment and post on subreddits it swayes the AIs understandings of what the correct data is. This has major implications as a thread like AusPayslips will now affect data statistics pushing down the average wage. Even though it isnt. Data will get collected by news agencies who dont do their research properly and now the general understanding is everyone is overpaid. We have already seen this happen in other rubreddits. Google it if you arent sure.

If you arent sure if someone is an AI bot or not. Dont interact. Your information is being used to train AIs and how all this works. This isnt what this group is for. No one should know your perosnal finances for any reason other than you. Be very careful not to give financial advice to strange looking accounts.

Protect your assets and your investments and don't expose your details to the world. Check the profiles before commenting. And most importantly dont feed the machines. You are just a 5394652789202 in a database somewhere in a datacentre. Your wellbeing is not their priority

Again most of you already know this but be careful out there. I feel if i dont speak up no one else will. Its clear as day its happening all over.

Thanks for your time. Be careful out there.

Edit: thanks for the Buzz Worthy Post badge. You are a great community. Im not used to this much attention but thank you all. And please be safe out there. Its getting wild

Gone my idea to get second investment to max negative gearing. But PPOR is tax free. All manufactured profits tax free as well. So I'm gonna prioritize transformation of my PPOR in Frankston South into true dual living, converting old storage room to bathroom, kitchenet and laundry on a ground floor, potentially splitting rampus and adding 5th bedroom while prices on trades are still palatable.

Anyone else feel that we gonna see an inflow of disposable capital onto PPORs upgrades vs shares/new builds in next 3-5 years?

Previous plan was: Discretionary Trust with high capital growth shares -> bucket company (whilst wife 30c tax bracket and myself 47ct bracket still working full time for next ~10 years) ->distributions from company and sell down shares for early retirement. This strategy is dead now (if budget changes legalised).

A potential new option that could be worthwhile is:

Fixed trust (owns etfs high capital growth, still gets CGT inflation exemption) with 100% fixed ownership to holding company - > holding company holds and retains profits at 30%, invests in local property -> Discretionary trust owns shares in this company which then pays to wife and I when we retire. Yes still get 30% tax on trust income. Could also maybe pay out from holding company directly to us to get franked dividends but unsure how that would work.

First the current rules need to get approved. Also need to get official advice from our accountant on this issue.

Interested in peoples through on this potential new structure.

Assuming a 1.75T market cap, I’m about to walk away with ~$1.1M in cash after fees, CGT etc. Unfortunately, I’m forced to sell at the IPO due to various reasons.

I currently have $1M in loans against my PPOR and $1M in loans against commercial property.

What would you do?

1. Pay off the PPOR, debt recycle and invest into shares?

2. Pay off the commercial properties and use the net yields (7% p/a) to invest every year going forward

3. Mix of the above?

Has anyone managed large tax bills previously? Best advice my accountant could give is to put more money into super up to my cap

Considering methods of downside protection for the inevitable drop in equity markets. I’d start by saying I’m a long term bull and building long term diversified positions. In lieu of seeking to sell and “time the market”. Anyone using this strategy already?

Why would there be a pullback? Oil market risks and associated cost of food production risks, increasing small part of the US market driving returns in the S&P, bond yields rising and increasingly inflationary environment.

What comes to mind is building a small, fully funded, position in 2x inverse S&P.

One detail in the budget that I don’t think is getting enough attention is what it means for existing owner occupiers who upgrade later.

The budget language says properties held before 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 are exempt from the negative gearing changes. It also says every existing property owner can continue to negatively gear properties held before announcement.

So if you owned and lived in your home before budget night, then later upgrade and keep the old property as an investment, it appears that property may still sit under the grandfathered negative gearing rules.

That is a pretty big deal.

It means upgrading could become more attractive for existing owners. Instead of selling the old home, some may look to retain it, rent it out and continue using negative gearing, while future buyers of established investment properties face the new rules.

Obviously we still need legislation and tax advice before anyone makes decisions, but based on the current budget wording this looks like one of the more interesting unintended consequences