In Australia there is no tax on inherited property. But you could be up for tax on any future growth in the property. The tax issues around this are complex and it will depend on a lot of things such as:
PreCGT property v post
Investment v main residence
use of the property after inheritance etc.

eg property purchased prior to 1986 (or there abouts) will be CGT free even if it was a rental. But if you inherit a pre CGT property the property loses its CGT free status and you are taken to have acquired it at market rates at the date of death of the previous owner.

You should also look into your parents setting up a testamentary discretionary trust within their will, or giving an option in the will for form one, so that property passes to a trust. This will give you considerable tax advantages and considerable asset protection as well.

Hi Andrew

It is usually just one offset account per loan. Some banks only allow one, others may allow more than 1.

interest is just claimed on your tax return. It is self assessment so you just write down the figure on the return. You can get the figure from adding up all the interest you have paid throughout the year (and sorting any deductible from non deductible etc).

possibly.

But in reality we are all beenficiaries of a number of trusts without knowing it. It would be impossible to tell centrelink something if we have no knowledge.

Here is some more info
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/publications/fis022.htm
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/trusts/index.htm

I have never looked into this, but it is worth considering.

If your parents intend to apply for centrelink benefits you need to be careful with trusts. Centrelink can deem the trust assets to be their own if they are a beneficiary or trustee or appointor or controller of a trust.

You will need a bit more than an extra clause.

You will need a whole option contract which will run into many pages. You will also need a contract of sale drawn up which will be come into play when the option is exercised. You will also need a lease to tie in too.

A good lawyer should be able to draw these up for you. If you do it yourself you will run the risk of the option seller being able to get out of the deal because of mistakes.

Yes, the SMSF is a trust and could be a beneficiary of a discretionary trust. But there are many legal and taxation issues involved.

I would think that if the property's first use was as an investment it should be ok, but not sure what happens if you live in it first.

You cannot claim costs such as stamp duty etc until you sell, but you could claim borrowing costs over 5 years as well as depreciation and all the usual costs – but only from the date the place is available for rent.

Why buy something you can get for free?

Even if you don't have any private debt, there are at least two reasons why paying interest only on an investment loan is beneficial.

1. Your money is locked away and cannot be taken back without tax consequences, and
2. You end up paying more money per month so that means you cannot afford to invest this money elsewhere – the opportunity cost.

Imagine if you had 5 properties and were paying $1000 per month extra on each. that is about $60,000 pa. In 10 years this would amount to $600,000.

Now imagine that you had no spare cash and hadn't saved any extra, but you had $600,000 available in redraw. You want to upgrade your main residence. You would need to reborrow this $600,000 to purchase your new property. The trouble is that you would have to pay interest on this money and the interest would not be deductible as it has been borrowed for private purposes.

However, if you had used a IO loan with a 100% offset account and then saved the $600,000 in the offset you would have saved exactly the same amount of interest on your loans as if you had paid into the loan as an extra payment. But when you need your money for further private expenses you just take the money from the offset account rather than reborrowing it. This will result in the interest on your investment properties increasing again (because the balance on the offset account goes down), AND the extra interest on the investments will be deductible.

At an interest rate of 7% interest on $600,000 would equal $42,000 pa. Tax on this could be around $20,000. So that means you could have been around $20,000 pa better off by using an interest only loan in this example. Then add in the cumulative effects and the amounts are even larger.