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Hiyas Guys (and Gals?)
Reading through alot of the posts here has got me to thinking about our situation here and I figure theres some good advice to be had here.
I have a $70k mortgage ($600 a month)on a $140k odd home and am paying over 20k a year in income tax.
Now I figure I should be able to use some of the value in my house to do something to make us better off and possibly knock off some my taxes.
So any advice as to how all this works or who i should talk to.
cheers
Dave
SCRUFF, You dont give enough detail for anyone to give meaningfull idea projections. Only fools give or take advice, sensible people give ideas back and forth, and discuss with an open mind ideas that they might not have thought up themselves. You sound first of all like a good honest toiler, that lives in a country town somewhere. I say that because of the price of the house that you have half equity in. The first thing to remember is, you can never beat the tax man, you beat him today, you will get beat up tomorrow. The second thing to work out is,he makes all the rules, you sit down and work it out. GST is the taxmans biggest loophole,you can honestly claim about the lot if you sit down and think it out. He will catch you at the end, but if you are smart enough you will be rich by then, so who cares. Your residence should be registered as a business, that is your first rule. To do that, you in all probability are living in the wrong type of property. Give us all without disclosing your identity or location, a few more facts then i feel sure you will get ideas from people that will start you on the right track.
good luck MACDUNK
Thanks Duncan,
Good honest toiler would pretty much sum me up lol
Any ways, more info..... Ill try not to turn it into a life's story ;)
GST, I'm GST registered via a small business that I own that will never make me a living here but does help out alot. It pays my wife around 7.5k a yr wages (her tax rate is alot less than my top secondary rate ) and theres around 10k at least ( the major consumable is marked up around x8) that can be freed up each year for other things if I can use it without it counting as income somehow. (possible?) It has averaged between 35-45k gross sales for the last 4 years, slowly growing each year.
When it comes to GST etc I probably don't claim as much as I probably can.
What else, I grossed just over 70k this past year not inc the above.
The house I got for what I thought was a steal 2 years ago and its gained about 50k during that time.
We have been thinking about maybe getting into a rental properties but locally I cant see how it can work, based on the house value/debt and the likely rental income to cover the expenses and found this site via a web search about investment properties and what I have seen here has certainly added fuel to the fire so to speak.
You mention that my residence should be registered as a business.... how can your house be a business? its your house isn't it? But then now I think about it, if you get into property, your house is just another property...
A few more facts, I'm not to sure what kind of facts you are talking about, I'm on a good salary and over the last few years have lived well so to speak and spent alot of "wasted" money but have been thinking more of the future now that our youngest is at high school and where we want to be now that 40 is approaching.
cheers