Empower Blog Tax Refund

ATO Holiday Home Tax Crackdown: What Property Investors Need to Know About Rental Property Deductions

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is tightening its approach to holiday home tax deductions, and the implications for property investors across Australia are significant. If you own a holiday home, Airbnb, or short-term rental property, understanding how these new ATO rules apply could mean the difference between claiming deductions and losing ...

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How to Boost Your Tax Return in 2025: Ben & Julia’s Hot Tips

It’s that time of year again! And if you’re a property investor or planning to become one, this is the episode you don’t want to miss. Join Ben Kingsley and property tax expert Julia Hartman as they unpack the top tax strategies for 2025—covering everything from depreciation schedules and repairs vs improvements, to land tax timing, sup...

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Victoria’s Latest Vacancy Tax

Please note that this article is first released on BanTacs Blog here. From 1st January 2025 a vacancy land tax applies to all residential properties in Victoria that are not considered to be occupied for at least 6 months of the previous year.   It is no longer just the inner and middle Melbourne areas that are caught.   The period conside...

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Maximise Your Returns: Mastering End-of-Year Tax Planning, HECS Hacks, Super Strategies, and More

Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman: Episode 5 In our final episode before the end of the financial year, we'll be exploring the latest tax updates from across Australia, including: Important Changes to HECS/HELP Debt - Changes you MUST ACT on quickly! Each year your HECS debt and other student loans are indexed for inflation on the...

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Navigating Tax Changes in 2023: Updates to Remote Work Claims, Renting And Victoria’s New Tax Grab 

Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman: Episode 4 In our first episode for 2023, we'll be exploring the latest tax updates from across Australia, including:  Changes to working from home Expense claims: What expenses can you now claim on your 2023 tax returns and how to navigate these changes while maximising your tax deductions. ...

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Highlights from the FY22 Reporting Season: Will Australia Avoid A Recession?

Note: This information is provided by Ausbil Investment Management Limited, an Australian-based investment manager.  Key Observations of Reporting Season Context FY22 reporting season comes after a period of extraordinary events. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia towards the end of the HY22 reporting season in February had a profound eff...

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Your Ultimate Guide To Reducing Tax on Vehicles, Private Insurance & Land

Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman: Episode 3 IMPORTANT NOTE: This recording was filmed and produced before Queensland's Land Tax was scrapped. With a number of policy changes on the cards, in our third episode of “Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman,” Ben and Julia cover... Salary Sacrificing For Cars: How do Salary Sac...

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Tax Planning Tips to Maximise your Returns (Part Two)

Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman: Episode 2, Part 2 In our last Bonusisode, we featured Part One of Tax Planning Tips to Maximise your Returns and now we’re back to give you the rest of the gold!    We’ll be homing in on claiming travel expenses - especially if you’re a rental owner – and how you can best p...

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Tax Planning Tips to Maximise your Returns (Part One)

Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman: Episode 2, Part 1 To celebrate (or more accurately, prepare) for the upcoming tax season, we’re back with the second episode of our new Property Tax education series called “Talking Property Tax with Julia Hartman”. As the old saying goes, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fai...

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Principal Place of Residence CGT Exemption

The recent increases in housing prices make it more important than ever to ensure you home is fully protected from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) by your main residence exemption. Afterall CGT is really just a tax on inflation.  If your home misses out on the exemption you are unlikely to have enough left to buy another home after you pay the tax...

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Tax Deductions When Working From Home

Don’t forget to keep all the records you will need to be able to claim the associated costs as a tax deduction. None of the claims listed below will affect the CGT main residence exemption on your house. The CGT main residence exemption is more a factor of whether you see the public there or that it is advertised as a place of business. If yo...

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What is Negative Gearing and Why It’s NOT a Strategy?

This video is part of our Negative Gearing video series. You're currently watching Video 1. Video 2: Labor's Negative Gearing Policy Blunders (Part 1) - Watch here Video 3: Labor's Negative Gearing Policy Blunders (Part 2) - Watch here Transcript: Hello, Ben Kingsley here. There's a lot of discussion and debate around property at the moment and N...

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Tax Refund: Can You Request It Sooner?

Whenever you are buying an investment property, you should never buy it for tax reasons alone because it really has to be about the fundamentals underlying that particular property that you're buying. But let's be honest, once you've done that, the tax concessions or the tax refund that you get from holding a property is a very strong reason why yo...

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