What cheeses me off

[TheRealTMA]

There hirndreds to thousands of apartments bought.off the plan by Chinese investors that have been completed for years and never been occupied for a single day. The building next to where I used to live had 70+ percent of apartments empty. There are people desperate for somewhere to live and these overseas absentee owners are refusing to rent them out.

There a large house semi heritage house, well renovated and very nice (knew the owners) in a street close to us. Sold for 3.5 mill then the apparently foreign owners spend inordinate amount on renovations for THREE years of daily work. Still seems not inhabited most days. And IMHO they destroyed the character of the house with the renovations, but admit I have not seen inside.

Looks like a tax dodge or money laundering to us.

 

[Pushka]

It's not a tax on people who have vacant properties for a few months, vacant for renovations or even those who use the property only a couple of times a year and is vacant for most of the year (such as holiday homes, which have exemptions if occupied for 4 weeks or more a year by the owner or their relatives).

Instead, there are a group of investors who basically sit on properties purely for capital gain, just somewhere to park their money (often foreign investors). Aimed to motivate that group to make the property available for rent, probably moreso than as a pure tax grab. Apparently there are a lot of empty apartments in central Melbourne that fall into this category.

There's also a vacant land tax that is being implemented for "established" suburbs in Melbourne , which is aimed to disincentivise holding onto empty residential lands for too long (without dwellings) to encourage people to build properties. I think people become liable for this after holding the undeveloped/empty residential land for five years without any development.

These are more about using tax as a lever to encourage certain behaviours than generating lots of revenue.

Interesting you say about the foreign investors. I did some googling after the first comment earlier today and saw an interesting site about how to deal with it. Google had it listed in English. I clicked on the link and it took me to a page completely in characters and which I assumed was a Chinese language.

 

[Pushka]

What cheeses me off today is when someone in my team always adds an additional 4-8 people to an email chain for no reason and she does it all the time. Likes she incapable of keeping something within only the group that it applies to and CC's up to the CFO every time.

Today I responded with;
Hi everyone and before this launches a dozen emails that I dont have to read, if you followed the instructions in the 1st email/chain and signed in>alert>tasks, you will see that .................

Please drop me off the email chain as this has nothing to do with me and I dont have any time to give to additional tasks that are outside my scope or mental capacity at this time.

My CFO asked if I was OK

Yes. We had a marketing person who would CC everyone in on her inane observations. Clearly she won her degree in a raffle as she was completely naive in so many ways. And just, well, stupid.

One of the directors had a birthday. We share the date. I was a director also. She sent a Happy Birthday email to him and copied in everyone . I took great delight in asking her if she'd put my email address in the CC space instead of the To space.

 

[serfty]

Tax tax tax... I saw a reference today to there being consideration of the implementation of an "unrealised gains" tax.

You are hanging onto an asset that has increased significantly in notional/market value but aren't selling it? Meh, we'll tax you on that notional increase and you have to pay now ...

 

[MARTINE]

Tax tax tax... I saw a reference today to there being consideration of the implementation of an "unrealised gains" tax.

You are hanging onto an asset that has increased significantly in notional/market value but aren't selling it? Meh, we'll tax you on that notional increase and you have to pay now ...

Put the guitars away @Denali

 

[TheRealTMA]

Fed up with this.

”
Pasi Sahlberg, professor of educational leadership at the University of Melbourne, said the data reminded him of the “boiling frog apologue”.

“If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if it’s put in tepid water which is brought to a boil slowly, it won’t perceive the danger and will be cooked to death,” he said.”

No, it’s false. Only humans do that. Frogs are much more intelligent and jump out.

 

[RooFlyer]

Yes. We had a marketing person who would CC everyone in on her inane observations. Clearly she won her degree in a raffle as she was completely naive in so many ways. And just, well, stupid.

I received an e-mail from a history group. Was sent to about 200 people, with everyone's e-mail addresses shown. (An obvious oops, judging by their past mails)

One person sent an e-mail complaining (quite strongly) - and cced it to everyone - with addresses all shown

 

[Scarlett]

Ah. Now we know two of the 1m vacant at census night

If vacant in Victoria there is a long term.vacancy tax now as well. QLD is considering same.

How is that long term vacancy thing going to work? Are they going to monitor electricity usage to check someone’s there, or what?

Retiree business opportunity: free accom by spending a night at random people’s properties and using their utilities to make the place appear lived in to the govt?

 

[Mr_Orange]

How is that long term vacancy thing going to work? Are they going to monitor electricity usage to check someone’s there, or what?

Water usage is one way to monitor. That's how this lot do it and until a few years ago were writing an annual report on Melbourne: Speculative Vacancy Reports | Prosper Australia.

 

[Guvner]

How is that long term vacancy thing going to work? Are they going to monitor electricity usage to check someone’s there, or what?

Retiree business opportunity: free accom by spending a night at random people’s properties and using their utilities to make the place appear lived in to the govt?

"The Victoria Government will also launch a trial for a new enforcement system across metropolitan Melbourne, rather than relying on self-reporting and landowners. The trial, to be led by the Victorian State Revenue Office (SRO), would use utility data (ie. electricity and water usage) to identify homes that are not being used.

This would mean landowners identified by the SRO with potentially vacant properties would be asked provide proof that people live at their residence during the relevant calendar year.

"The trial is proposed to start in 2024 with apartment towers and expand in 2025 to include inner and middle suburbs of Melbourne."

Tax Alert - Expanding the net for Vacant Residential Land Tax in Victoria

Lowe Lippmann offers a comprehensive range of traditional and specialised accounting, financial & business.

www.lowelippmann.com.au

There's a great incentive not to go off-grid for a sustainable future.. ridiculous..

 

[Scarlett]

WCMO

Friggin mosquitoes!
Especially when you’re about to drop off to sleep and hear that buzzing next to your head.

 

[JohnK]

These are more about using tax as a lever to encourage certain behaviours than generating lots of revenue.

Good points but there are 2 issues here.

Firstly I am strongly against foreign investment. Selling land and property so locals can make quick profits and making it harder for kids growing up to get into property. These foreign investors do not care what happens to Australia or Australians for that matter. (Thailand is going to find out the hard way)

Secondly if I go and buy a property (for my future) and choose not to live in it that should be my business. I don't want to rent it out and be liable for capital gain when I sell. Putting a tax on property is going to force me to lie that I live in that property to avoid paying tax.

These are all silly ideas from a bunch of people who are desperate. Include death tax, inheritance tax etc in the stupid idea column. Why did they sell Sydney airport for a quick pittance? Keep it and there's at least 5 billion income a year. CBA etc. More in stupid idea column.

 

[dajop]

Good points but there are 2 issues here.

Secondly if I go and buy a property (for my future) and choose not to live in it that should be my business. I don't want to rent it out and be liable for capital gain when I sell. Putting a tax on property is going to force me to lie that I live in that property to avoid paying tax.

Whether you rent it out or not, if you never actually live in the property you are liable for capital gains tax when you sell it. So either way you need to be forced to lie to avoid paying tax!

 

[cove]

Had to deal with expiring Kris Miles that had accumulated in the Covid period before the business sale. My son and DIL came to our rescue as they are redemption nominees on my account. Both chose first class flights because they were available so problem in April has been fixed.
Today we are dealing with fixing a glass mezzanine wall that crashed to the apartment lower level without hurting anyone. Apparently the Australian Standard changed but we had not heard about that change.

 

[Larko1]

WCMO

Friggin mosquitoes!
Especially when you’re about to drop off to sleep and hear that buzzing next to your head.

 

[tgh]

overseas absentee owners are refusing to rent them out

This heavy breathing on stuff people own bothers me…
I guess the solution for many folks will be to list them for sale for an unrealistic price

 

[jkbaus]

WcMO is Sydney trains, been waiting 30 mins at Central and am about to lose my table booking as a no show. Poor signage, too long between peak hour services.

This is why I always preference the bus, much more regular and you can get off when delays. First time on a train in Sydney since pre covid, I was right to avoid. Absolutely useless.

There was an emergency near Macdonaldtown. Caused disruption on the network.
Suicide.
So sad when someone takes their own life.
And so sorry for the driver and other passengers on that train.

 

[Mr_Orange]

This heavy breathing on stuff people own bothers me…

It's all part of the WEF's Great Reset to transfer as much wealth and ownership to the uber-wealthy. "In the future, you will own nothing and be happy."

 

[Lynda2475]

There was an emergency near Macdonaldtown. Caused disruption on the network.

And yet they couldn't be bothered to make a single announcement about delays because?

Just googled it, happened at 3pm, so at 6pm they well and truly knew what was going on and could have had advice including directing people to bus alternatives which were not disrupted.

Worst is the new signage at the stairs of the platforms is misleading, they used to show all stops on a given line so you could easily see if the train you need leaves from that platform, but now they show only 4 or 5 stops they consider key. With the uninformative labelling of T1, T2 (as opposed to old labelling that gave a destination i.e. last stop on the route) etc you now have to go up to the platform and wait for the digital display to change to see whether something is stopping at any station with less than 4 platforms.

Thankfully last nights destination was a once off and I can go back to avoiding the trains. Just do proper announcements and have informative signage - if the London Tube and New York Subway can list all stops, then so can Sydney Trains.

 

[dajop]

There's a great incentive not to go off-grid for a sustainable future.. ridiculous..

Have a feeling that the real target of this (empty apartment buildings and other "banked" dwellings in Melbourne) are probably the last properties to be going off-grid. Can't really see a 40 story building in the Melbourne CBD, being strong candidates for going off grid.

And I'm sure for those who do go off-grid in the unlikely event they get drawn into this, they'll have plenty of evidence suggesting they live there to dispute the idea that the dwelling is vacant.