Depreciation Schedule deduction

[poyner]

Hi all,

Well this is my first post on this forum so hi everyone. Looking forward to learning lots as I read through all the wealth of information on here. At the moment I have what I will will be a fairly simple question though. We are just about to move overseas and will be converting our PPOR to an IP. Today I called 'the depreciator' people and organised to have someone come around to do our depreciation schedule next week. Now I'm a little worried that I may have been premature in this. You see we are not moving out until right near the end of August. Will the cost of having the depreciation schedule still be tax deductible? Especially considering it will be in in the financial year before we receive any rent? Should I have waited until after the house was rented and then had the schedule done up retrospectively? Any advice for next time would be great.

Cheers.

 

[JustALearner]

Hi Poyner,

Let me be the first to say welcome to the forum. This place is a great place to learn so enjoy your time here. Everyone is very helpful and I personally have learnt so much from the nice people here in the Somersoft cummunity.

In regards to your question, you may find your answer has already been posted here:

http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33161

As Rickardo has written:

"From a tax perspective, expenses become deductible once the property becomes available for rent."

So in saying that, I would assume that your depreciation schedule will not be deductible until you rent it out, and if that is next year then it looks like you will miss the boat for this year

I hope this helps!

 

[depreciator]

Check with your accountant, but I suspect you would be better off paying for it next year. Get the inspection done before you move out of the house, though - saves mucking tenants around.
If the 'depreciator people' is us, give me a call and we'll refund your payment and you can pay next year. Easy.
Scott

 

[HotRod]

You don't need to get it before you own it, there's no rush really.

You can get the schedule done whenever you want.

You can back date them and even amend prior year's tax returns to reflect prior year's ownership.

 

[depreciator]

He does own it. And lives in it. He is apparently moving out of it. In cases like this it is always easier to get an inspection done while the owner is living there - we just had a tenant stand one of our guys up for the 4th time.
And yep, amendments are easy, but accountants generally charge to lodge an amendment request (unless it's their fault something got overlooked).
Scott

 

[HotRod]

He does own it. And lives in it. He is apparently moving out of it. In cases like this it is always easier to get an inspection done while the owner is living there - we just had a tenant stand one of our guys up for the 4th time.
And yep, amendments are easy, but accountants generally charge to lodge an amendment request (unless it's their fault something got overlooked).
Scott

I missed that bit.

Anyway, even the full cost of the report should be more than be paid for by the tax breaks from the report.

 

[poyner]

As a late followup to this thread, I just wanted to say that I had a personal call from Scott and he sorted everything out. Thanks so much Scott! He refunded the original deposit we paid no questions asked. They even offered to do the inspection now and organise the payment/report later but that wasn't required.

It's personal service like that that can really make a difference to a business. There's no doubt I'll be going back to the depreciator for all of our depreciation needs in the future.

 

[depreciator]

Thanks for that.
Haven't been on the forum this week - I'm up in Port Douglas at the moment sitting in an internet cafe right now with a bunch of backpackers.
Bit warm today - I wrote that for the Sydney people. I heard from the office that Sydney is having its coldest July day in years.
I've noticed lots of changes up here. My brother lives here so I come up every couple of years. He owns and lives on some acres out of town, but he said locals can't afford to rent in town anymore. His girlfriend runs a restaurant and the owners of it bought some units to house their apprentice chefs otherwise they wouldn't have been able to get staff.