Offsetting prior year losses and foreign income

[lawriebuck]

Hi there,

Between 1999 and 2002 I worked in East Timor and my investment properties produced significant losses on my tax returns as I had no income in Australia.

I am now back in Australia and want to know if those losses can be carried forward to offset my Taxable income on this years' return. I have had a poke around on the ATO website and can only find scraps of information about this.

I assumed this would all be possible, but perhaps it is more complicated than I thought.

Is there anyone out there who works OS and has IP in Australia that may have had a similar situation?

I would really appreciate any input....

BTW, this forum is great!

:)

[Philby]

Hey another Darwinite, welcome to the forum. Cant answer your query but checkout the search engine.
Good Luck

[NickM]

Your tax losses would carry forward and can be offset against any AUstralian source income

welcome aboard !

cheers
NickM

[lawriebuck]

Your tax losses would carry forward and can be offset against any AUstralian source income

Yeah,

that's what I thought, but it seems that the prior year losses are used to offset the foreign source income, not Australian source income.....

I cannot understand why a loss incurred in Australia would be offset against income earned somewhere else...

Tax is so confusing.... more so if you are trying to do it properly!

Any other ideas?


:)