You will have to read the agreement. Some state that commission will be payable if someone they introduced later buys the property etc.

You are doing all right – remember you are paying almost double the min repayment on your home loan.

If you can refinance those loans to a cheaper rate with less fees it would be good. And yes, pay IO only on the investments as these loans are deductible. Get rid of the non deductible first.

Luke,

I would talking about the calculating of the CGT in that post.

Hi Luke

I think this is incorrect. This would be the case if you moved into an IP but when moving out of your main residence and then changing it to an IP the cost base of the property would be set at the value at the time of moving out generally. see s 118-192 ITAA 1997.

Moving into an IP is covered at s.118-185 ITAA97.

I may be wrong though as I am not an accountant

Nope. The would not have access. But AUSTRAC records every transfer of money sent overseas and Centrelink, ATO etc would have access to this.

Taking cash up to $10k overseas, per person, is not required to be reported either.

Perhaps the trust could be continued by settling new property on it before it sells all of the real property.

This is confusing "The properties were bought as a Unit trust which is owned by a Family Trust."

Is the onwer of the properties a trustee of the unit trust with the discretionary trust owning the units?

What would happen if this is the case is that the trustee would sell the property. If it is at a loss then the unit trust would have the loss. The discretionary trust would still own shares in a unit trust – but with no assets. A requirement for a trust to exist is for it to hold property, so a trust without any property (in general sense) could mean the trust fails.

Since you personally didn't incur the loss you would not be able to claim it or to offset it against future income. A way around this is for the trust, unit or discretionary, to make some income or you divert some income into the trust so that the loss can be offset. But since it is a capital loss you would generally need a capital again to offset it.

If the unit trust was able to continue then the loss could be carried forward without restriction.

Its a complex situation that you will need to get advice on.

But, see this

http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?docid=TXD/TD200631/NAT/ATO/00001

TD 2006/31
Income tax: is a government rebate received by a rental property owner an assessable recoupment under subsection 20-20(3) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 , where the owner is not carrying on a property rental business and receives the rebate for the purchase of a depreciating asset (for example an energy saving appliance) for use in the rental property

He's probably right. Go for an IO loan to access the equity – separate split of course.

Would those companies be related parties? If so then your SMSF would be prohibited from acquiring the shares. There is an exemption if it wouldn't result in exceeding more than 5% of the funds total assets.