Frequently Asked Questions?

If my property was built before 1985, is it too old?

No. It is worth noting that:

• Your investment property does not have to be new: Both new and old properties will attract some depreciation deductions. A common myth is that older properties will attract no claim.

• You can adjust previous year’s tax returns: When a property owner has not been claiming or maximising tax depreciation deductions, the previous two financial year’s tax returns can generally be adjusted and amended.

Why is plant and equipment itemised?

The ATO specifies an individual effective life for each plant and equipment item. Consequently, our reports show the estimated cost for each item and its contribution to the depreciation total per financial year. The original building structure and capital improvements, or Division 43, are all written off at the same rate (unless building works have been completed over different legislation periods). Therefore individual costs for these items aren’t expressed in the report. If required by the ATO, the estimates for Division 43 can be justified.

Why does the depreciation and capital allowance schedule only last 40 years?

From the date of construction completion, the ATO has determined that any building eligible to claim the building write-off allowance has a maximum effective life of 40 years. Therefore, investors can generally claim up to 40 years depreciation on a brand new building, whereas the balance of the 40 year period from construction completion is claimable on an older property.

Can I claim renovations completed by the previous owner?

Yes. Anything in the property that is part of a previous renovation will be estimated by our quantity surveyors and deductions calculated accordingly. This includes items that are not obvious e.g. new plumbing, water proofing, electrical wiring etc. For capital improvements to qualify for the Division 43 building write-off allowance, they must have commenced construction within the appropriate Division 43 time periods.

What information do I need to provide?

Information required to produce a Tax Depreciation and Capital Allowance report includes the following:

• Date of settlement

• Purchase price

• Access details for inspection (E.g. property manager or tenant details)

• Any information pertaining to improvements or additions made to the property including dates and actual costs (where available)

• The date the property became available for income producing purposes.

Who is qualified to estimate construction costs for depreciation purposes?

Quantity Surveyors are one of the few professionals recognised by the ATO to have the appropriate construction costing skills to calculate the construction cost for the purposes of building depreciation. BMT also prepare cost plan estimates for all types of buildings. Construction costs are estimated in today’s market and historically adjusted to the year of construction using cost indices.

How do you work out how old the building is?

The age of the building can be determined by obtaining council documents with dates pertaining to the original application approval date or the Occupancy Certificate date and final inspection date. Similar methods are used Australia wide, however some properties are privately certified. BMT conduct the relevant searches required to accurately determine the age of a building. These include historical council searches regarding lodged development applications, as well as Occupancy Certificates and certified final inspections.

Privacy Policy

Business Initiatives Privacy Statement
Business Initiatives has a firm commitment to privacy and your privacy is important to us. This statement discloses the information practices for the Business Initiatives web site, including what type of information is collected, how the information is used, and with whom the information is shared.

Summary
You can visit our site without telling us who you are and without revealing any information about yourself. We make no effort to identify public users of our site.

However, some sections of our site are intended to be used only by a particular visitor or group of visitors and to be hidden to others. Before allowing a visitor access to such restricted sections, we authenticate the visitor by asking the visitor to specify a user id and password. We are then able to track usage of restricted sections by such authenticated users.

We do not disclose any identifying data to any third party for any purpose.

If you register using one of our online forms, this information is confidential and will be treated as such. We will not disclose any information to third parties.

If you register for our newsletter, we will send you emails from time to time about information which we deem is relevant to you. Should you wish to unsubscribe from this list at any time, you may do so. An unsubscribe link will be provided on every email sent out.

What information we collect
When you browse through our site your browser issues HTTP requests for web pages and other resources from our web servers. We collect certain information contained in the HTTP requests, including:

• originating IP address
• referring web page
• user-agent information (such as browser version)

In general, we do not require users to identify themselves and we do not log the specific identity of visitors. However, to gain access to restricted sections of our site a visitor is required to provide user id and password information.

How we use cookies
We may use a cookie to detect if a visitor has visited our site before, and if so, to help us better publish content that visitors need and want. Such a cookie contains no personal identifying values or information. If accepted by the visitor, the cookie will be stored on the visitor's computer.

Some sections of our site are intended to be used only by a particular visitor or group of visitors and to be hidden to others. Before allowing a visitor access to such restricted sections, we authenticate the visitor by asking the visitor to specify a user id and password. If the visitor is successfully authenticated we may use a cookie to avoid further authentication of the visitor during the session. Such a cookie may contain a value relating the visitor to the user id specified, and even though we are able then to track usage of restricted sections by authenticated users, we currently do not attempt to analyze what resources a particular authenticated user accesses. The cookie is automatically deleted when the visitor ends a session by closing the browser and is not stored permanently on the visitor's computer.

Why we collect information and how we use it
We collect the information mentioned above for web site administration purposes, including:

• to make sure we deliver the information you request
• to make sure we deliver the information you request in an expedient manner
• to make sure we deliver the information you request in a format that is usable to you and your browser
• to make sure only authenticated users can access restricted sections of our site
• to be able to improve our site
• to make sure other web sites link to our site in a proper manner for security purposes.

How we share the collected information with others
We do not share or disclose any identifying data to any third party for any purpose.

Links to other sites
Our web site contain links to other web sites. Business Initiatives is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites.

Security
We carefully protect the quality and integrity of your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Data is stored in password-controlled servers with limited access.

Contact Information
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of our web site, or your dealings with our web site, you can contact us using the details on the Contact Us page.