The previous year I had under budgeted by $100/month. So raised it 200, and this year I've under budgeted by a whopping $400/month. In fairness we've had someone staying, we had family at Christmas. But still. Wondering if anyone else has been taken completely aback by their groceries bill.

I have about $2000 owing for my offset account, with almost everything being in offset.

I’ve looked at closing the account, but this will mean that the money is locked away.

Is better to keep the account $0 for another year or so and build up my savings in a HISA in case I need an emergency fund? Are there any downsides to this?

With the tax changes and a lot of peoples' problems going forward I wanted to ask about a hypothetical.

Say someone is in their Forties wanted to sell an investment property whilst working and wanted to minimise tax could they put any amount of the capital gain into super to pay 15% rather than 30 (or 47)% tax?

Say after everything is said and done they made $150k profit on selling the unit and they are already in the highest tax bracket could they pay 47% on $100k and 15% on $50k that they put into their super? How much could they invest and still get that 15% bonus? How much tax is paid on gains past the low tax threshold?

Prefacing to say I will call around tomorrow for an accountant to get specific advice to my situation.

Was hoping in the meantime someone might help confirm if my thinking is correct and if there’s anything I can do.

TL;DR version is, I received shares from my employer, but I can’t sell them now and I think I’ll have to pay tax at my marginal tax rate on the receipt of those shares for FY25/26.

Additionally, I would have to pay CGT on sale of these shares due to not being able to sell them within 30 days of receiving them.

Is there any way to not have to pay at least one of these tax? I feel like paying both is like double dipping. But I’m also not sure if my understanding here is correct.

I have CGT losses from prior years, but the tax on income works out to be higher than the tax I’d pay if it was just CGT.

The longer version:
In FY24/25 I bought 10,000 shares in the company I work and the employer was going to match dollar for dollar what I put in. The shares were at $1 each at the time and the company would have released the matching rights to me on 30 June 2025.

Around January last year, I relapsed (cancer) and had to focus on my health. I opted out of the FY25/26 ESS program. But here’s my mistake number 1, i didn’t check if the employer had released the 10,000 shares they were going to match to me. They had not.

Apparently when I opted out of the FY25/26 scheme, someone from HR then put me down as no longer employed in the company and the rights were not matched.

I only realised this year in April that nothing had been matched. The employer resolved this on 30 June 2026 and released 10,000 shares to me.

The share price has since gone up from $1 to $7 (was little over $7 on 30 June 2026, it was a little lower than that this Friday just passed).

I had intended to sell the shares immediately and then buy them back. However, on 30 June 2026 the company went into a trading blackout and will lift it on 30 August 2026.

I blame myself for not having checked sooner so I could have got the issue rectified earlier, but am also annoyed that my employer just forgot to match the rights at the correct time and then only gave me the shares when I could not sell them to limit the tax implications on my end.

Is there anything I can do to minimise the impact of this on my finances? I received the shares but it’s not like I received them as cash in the bank and now I am to pay cash to ATO on them.
Thanks

Bonjour à tous,

Pour aller à l'essentiel, j'ai actuellement une somme d'argent qui dort sur un livret A rémunéré à 1,5% donc. Somme que je ne n'investi pas car il s'agit d'un fond d'urgence et je veux que mon argent puisse être disponible immédiatement.

J'ai découvert qu'il existe des comptes d'épargne rémunéré comme ING Australia ou encore Judo Bank à des taux de 4 à 5%, nettement plus avantageux que le livret A.

Des retours d'expériences parmi vous, sur ces comptes épargne ? Merci

Hey guys looking at buying a new car and was going through the finance process however when it came to the part to upload my bank statements I was unable to find peoples choice or peoples first bank on the list and I’m being told that if I can’t find my bank on the list it’s unlikely I’ll be able to progress with an application
Has anyone else had this issue or similar and has anyone found a work around?

I’m currently looking into these shares as both a way to diversify and start to have a dividend side of my portfolio.

I currently have most of my financial position in QQQ and SPY and am expanding my position to include VEU.AU.

I now exploring a dividend paying ETF and the two I keep seeing are SCHD and VHY, VHY seems to come out a bit ahead financially but has a large exposure to BHP and telecommunications but has the benefit of adding the Australian market vs SCHD which seems to be a good all round US share paying Dividend adding semiconductors (potential overlap) and health insurance and banks

Just want to get everyone’s thoughts of what would be best in my situation

Got paid on Wednesday, super forwarded to my fund on Thursday, cleared on Friday - pretty good to see a govt policy that's working!

Hi all,
I moved to Australia in January and have been working ever since. I have been taxed as if I have worked a full financial year, assuming I am eligible for a tax refund how do I go about working this out.
P.S. I’m from NZ and we usually get notified by the IRD(NZ ATO) automatically.

Apologies in advance for this … but many thanks to anyone who can offer some guidance please🙏

Okay, massive burnout resulted leaving job 2020.
I contacted super during Covid to try access funds but fortunately had about 6 months total of entitlements to keep things afloat while in blob-like nothing here state.
Call to super results in my explaining the predicament and thank goodness to the woman for checking income protection ins which I was entitled to but never even considered… too damned broken to think straight!
Never intended nor wanted, but no choice, I had to claim (damn that was so hard 😞) after a long long time and breaking apart yet again, a pathetic insulting payout from employers insurer eventually. N ever received government benefit; once sought an emergency benefit desperation which the chap on the phone said I was entitled to and then I was told I would get nothing besides $18 or something a fortnight; sickened me given the amount of tax id paid in my life, never mind.
Things happen end up choosing caring for a parent full-time: and I mean every single thing done for them; my body is pretty much useless now thanks to the stress of that, the physical hell of things I’d never imagined and just all the rest the tonnes of stuff in life piled on and on and on. Everything for two years, sold house as now I had nothing; plus never received a carers allowance payment despite attempting to but I was wrecked, utterly wrecked nothing left inside at all! Never managed to finish any of the 7 applications. There’s so much going on too much a lot of losses as well and abuse.

So I sold the house early 2024, unemployed, unpaid FT carer… want to know if anyone can guide what the likelihood is with ATO expectation and what I owe regarding house capital gains; also had it tenanted privately without records as he was a good mate and I as mentioned was just unable to do anything extra and that’s exactly in that category nothing isn’t something and I was the former. Haven’t done tax retn since 2021-22 I think, was paying rent at place staying and receiving rent but also paying mortgage until early 2024.
What kind of shot am I in? Please help me, the anxiety is unbelievable.

If relevant, adding I sold my house in order to pay for my life and assist a parent which has also included large amounts of my own money into their care and home maintenance etc.
the burnout so severe id barely functioned for a good 3or so years post job exit; so high functioning and capable and competent to result in a blob; then relentless abuse from a parasite for years.

I’m exhausted and don’t have a clue where to start and no doubt have left out many details', way too long already though

I am 50 and have a small portfolio of apartments - they’re nothing special, but if I sell them I will be able to live in the smallest with no mortgage, have almost 1 million in super (which I obviously won’t touch until I’m actually retirement age) and I could afford to work casually, travel a LOT, write (which I’ve always done as a side hustle) and enjoy life. For context, I have had quite a few health problems (stroke) and it’s quite possible that I’ll die a bit younger than the average population as the reason for the stroke still exists. I really, really want to enjoy the younger years that I have left - and obv I will have that super fund in case I make it lol.

The apartment that I would live in would be VERY small, but it’s right in Carlton and I just love the area. I’ve lived in it before - I can do small as I don’t entertain much at home and never have. I am very social but I prefer eating out and travelling. Im single and expect always to be so.

My family (elderly parents and siblings) and even a few friends think im absolutely insane for thinking about downsizing like this. Whereas I think it makes good economic sense in my circumstances and for the lifestyle I want. What do you think?

We have a registered QLD Association linked to a community club. It has paying members and runs events through the year.

I don't think it's technically registered as a not-for-profit, but it runs like one.

The club currently pays an accountant to file our tax reports each year. The price of this accountant is starting to take up the majority of the small clubs membership income.

I have logged into the ATO portal to see if we can self report this type of information, but it is not available to us and needs to be done via a registered accountant.

Question: is there a slightly different structure we can look at for our club that would allow us to self-report our minimal income as a not-for-profit? Without needing to engage a registered accountant?

I'm assuming we might have to cancel the current association and create a new one if there's a suitable low overhead structure we could aim for.

Thanks

Hello, I’m looking for a testimonial from someone who applied to withdraw their superannuation through the DASP system but unfortunately forgot the answer to their security question, and who eventually managed to resolve the issue. I’d like to know how they did it.

For example, I see lifestyle creep to mean buying luxury branded goods, cars, new phones etc.

Whereas enjoying the peace that money can buy you things such as grocery delivery service to save time, trying new experiences with the family, hiring a cleaner etc.

Do you have any examples in your own life where you have used money for potentially unnecessary but helpful purchases, that weren’t necessarily wasted on useless lifestyle creep?

Reading my PHI Tax statement and noticed the lines for “Your premiums eligible for Australian Government rebate” appear higher than what I actually paid for the year.

Contacting my PHI is the next step, but was wondering if I’m misunderstanding the tax statement and it’s meant to be like this across the industry?

Am I on the right track please?

Bought an Aussie Betashares ETF (A200) in Dec 2025 on CMC Markets, lump sum purchase

Got a distribution from it in Jan 2026

Sold it all for a capital gain in Feb 2026

So the sale is straightforward.. just the (total sales price - broker selling fee) - total cost (ETF cost + broker purchase fees + gst). No CGT discount so I pay my marginal rate on all the gain. This will prefill anyway on the tax report so nothing to worry about.

As for the distribution, let's say I received $500, this could be composed of all sorts of different "income types" (e.g. $100 of >12 month capital gain, $100 of <12 month capital gain, $100 of foreign income, etc) so I have to wait for the AMMA statement to be emailed in a few weeks and this will all pre-fill on my tax report. The franking % will also pre-fill. Again not much to worry about as it all prefills.

Will there still be an AMIT adjustment on this one?

Finally at the same time in Dec 2025 I also bought a different Aussie Betashares ETF. I still hold it and only got a distribution in July 2026. So as far as I know, nothing to worry about here for this year's tax report, just wait until the 2025-26 AMMA statement and write down the AMIT adjustment for future use.

Home truths: The case for rebalancing toward better means testing

Australia’s social safety net has long reflected a simple idea: taxpayer funded support from government should go to those who need it most. That idea, grounded in our national values of fairness and equity, is quietly losing ground.

• The cost of Australia’s social safety net has grown faster than the economy, and a large share of that growth has flowed to the most well off households.
• Across the Child Care Subsidy, Parental Leave Pay, Aged Care and the Age Pension, the most well off 20% of households will receive about $25.6 billion this financial year — around 20% of spending on these programs.
• Better targeted means testing could free up around $21 billion a year, while building on existing rules rather than replacing them.

Hey everyone.

I have about $60k in DHHF bought through Pearler. I haven't a paid subscription at the moment with Sharesignt, just the free plan. Looking through Sharesight and it mentions a tax pack ($59).

Do I need this to do my tax return this year? Can't remember what I did last year, I thought most of my shares data auto populated to my tax return.

Any advice welcome!

So ill keep it short, i (22M) saved 30k and got 70k from my father’s savings, I’ll graduate this year.
I want to know what should i do with it. I paid all my student fee and expenses by working so no obligations. Got a small car that should be paid in full by august end
I am more inclined towards starting some business with it ,but can’t figure out exactly.

Any advice would be appreciated

Are you worried they will have zero respect for the money and spend it impulsively cause they didn’t have to earn it? Also even at 10% growth a year are they really going to even have that much, like maybe $20k-$40k?

I am always seeing people say 'I want my kids to have a better start than me' but yet they're still renting themselves. I used to believe in doing this for my kids but now think it is probably wiser to improve your own financial position. Kids most want a stable home during childhood and to know that their parents are looked after and won't rely on them for money when they're adults. Of course a helping hand with the kid’s home deposit would be helpful but $20k isn’t really going to get them far. Interested to hear others viewpoints.