Capital gains

If you HAVE made a capital gain on the sale of an asset, now is the time to offload those rubbish assets (like the shares that Taxi-driver tipped you off about, 20 years ago).

The capital loss can be subtracted from any capital gains to reduce or eliminate the resulting tax bill. You don’t need to use a like-for-like capital loss.

For example, you could use the loss from share sales to reduce the gain made on a property. And the loss is applied against the full amount of the gain. It is after you do this calculation, that you divide by 2 to work out how much is added to your tax return.

Remember too, that any unused capita loss rolls over to future years to be used then.

If you have no idea whatever happened to some old listed company you had shares in, check out delisted.com.au. This is a great site that will tell you where/when the company ended up.

Importantly, delisted offers a service where they will buy your “suspended” shares.

Sometimes a company is removed from the stock exchange for all sorts of reasons and just goes into Zombie mode. It’s not quite dead and can’t easily be disposed of.

Under tax laws, you can’t claim a loss unless you can prove it is actually dead through a liquidation statement or, you sell it. Delisted will buy your rubbish shares for say 10 cents (all of them) and get them off your books to show the loss.

They charge a fee but usually, the value of the loss means you save way more tax than their fees.

Super tweaks

With 3 weeks to go, this weekend is a great weekend to check your super to see if you are maxed out for super contributions for the year.

Remember, including your employer’s compulsory 10.5 percent, you can make up the shortfall to $27,500 for this financial year.

1. Login to your super fund.
2. Goto the contributions summary page. You are looking for the total of this year’s concessional contributions.
3. Subtract that number from $27,500.
4. The result is the difference you can pay into super before June 30 and claim a personal tax deduction. A nice way to boost your tax refund!

One warning. Just check when the boss’ contribution normally “hits” your super fund. You don’t want to double up. If you do, it's not the end of the world, it’s just that the extra amount won’t be able to be claimed as a deduction.

If you have a partner

Depending on their income, there are a couple of things to consider.

If your spouse earned less than $37,000 for this financial year and meets the age eligibility requirements, you can claim an 18 percent tax offset for injecting up to $3,000 into their super.
This needs to be a non-concessional contribution meaning no one claims a tax deduction. And before you ask, no you can’t claim a deduction for making a contribution to a partner’s account.

That translates to a tax credit of $540 which might boost your tax refund.

If their income is less than $42,016 and 10 percent of their income was earned through work, a $1,000 non-concessional contribution to their super, will attract a $500 government co-contribution.

Not bad hey? A 50 percent return on your money, courtesy of Jim Chalmers.

And finally, if you want to spouse split, you need to do that by June 30.

This is the trick where you can transfer your concessional contributions (net of the 15 percent contributions tax) from the last financial year into your spouse’s account.

Last minute Deductions

Finally, if you’re looking for some last-minute deductions and have run out of ideas, remember that you can pre-pay some of those tax-deductible expenses for next year and claim them this year. That might be insurance, tax-deductible interest, phone expenses, etc. The downside is, of course, you won’t have these deductions for next year!

Incoming changes

Keep your eyes open for an update on the changes that will apply from July 1. There are a few and while nothing will need you to act immediately, you’ll know to look out for them.