Fight against new property tax laws taken to govt

BMT Tax Depreciation CEO Bradley Beer is continuing his pursuit to have the government reconsider its proposed changes to depreciation legislation that were announced in the 2017 budget and are due to come into force on 1 July 2017.

The changes mean that investors who acquire a property after 9 May 2017 will not be able to claim depreciation on existing plant and equipment assets in the property. Those who purchased an investment property before 9 May 2017 will be able to claim depreciation as per normal.

In a webinar this week, Mr Beer reiterated points previously made to Accountants Daily about the changes going beyond the intent of what the government is trying to do.

“What’s odd, I think, is that sometimes you might buy a property six months old and there's still some life left in those items,” he said.

“I’ve been in Canberra a bit and will be back there again this week to talk to these guys about how we make sure they draft legislation that actually makes some sense. Part of that currently doesn't make sense.”

Mr Beer hopes that the government will clarify these points of contention when they write and release the legislation.

“They haven't actually written the legislation behind it at this stage. All they've done is put six little lines of information in the budget which is what we know to date.”

Mr Beer also reminded accountants to encourage their clients to amend past tax returns before beginning this year’s if they have missed out on some depreciation deductions in past years.

“If you are an investor and you haven't done your tax depreciation properly, you can actually... amend the last two years of your tax return and go back and ask for some money from the tax office,” he said.

“Coming up to tax time, you're about to do another tax return sometime fairly soon, but don't do another tax return before you amend the last two if you were missing out on some of those dollars.”