- M: 0401 763 675
- O: 02 8764 1596
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MANAGING DIRECTOR
brenda.ferguson@impacttfs.com.au
0401763675
I enjoy using my professional knowledge to help our clients to resolve their tax problems.
Brenda has been an accountant since 2003 after she graduated from a Master of Commerce degree in Sydney University. As a full member of CPA (Certified Practicing Accountant), and experienced Tax Agent, she is passionate about numbers and people.
Brenda assists a wide range of client’s including individuals, sole traders, small to large companies, family trusts, and self-managed super funds. She prides herself on her ability to be able to help clients professionally and efficiently. Before opening her own practice, Brenda has worked in different positions such as Senior Accountant and Financial Controller across several different industries. Her work in both the corporate sector and her own practice has given her the ability to produce the best results for the clients.
In her spare time Brenda enjoys reading, playing Ukulele, gardening and cooking.
OPERATIONS & MARKETING MANAGER
don.ferguson@impacttfs.com.au
02 8764 1596
Helping other team members achieve their ambitions and goals gives me great satisfaction.
Don is our Operations and Marketing Manager. He holds a Master of Arts and a Diploma of Education from the University of Sydney. Don had a long and enjoyable career as a teacher followed by award winning positions in customer service and sales.
He brings strong interpersonal skills to the team and is a highly effective communicator and problem solver. With a flair for creative design and strategy, Don brings his initiative and spark to Impact Taxation. He helps facilitate and implement staff training as well overseeing communication with key stakeholders. Don’s role as a teacher continues at Impact Taxation in sharing the task of mentoring new employees.
In his spare time Don enjoys reading and listening to music.
Assistant Accountant
ian.yap@impacttfs.com.au
"Ensuring completeness and accuracy is a key focus in our work quality."
Ian is a junior accountant currently pursuing a degree in Professional Accounting and Finance at the University of Sydney. Proficient in multiple languages, namely English, Mandarin, and Malay, Ian demonstrates a strong dedication to his career in accounting.
Ian’s interest in tax regulations, emphasis on tax returns, and submissions for clients reflect his proactiveness in his work. Ian’s meticulous mindset, attention to detail, and excellent communication skills, developed through hands-on work experience and client interactions, are valuable assets in his field.
In addition to his professional pursuits, Ian maintains a balanced lifestyle with interests in music and fitness. To relieve stress and maintain mental well-being, he enjoys playing the piano and working out at the gym.
JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT
ling.tan@imapacttfs.com.au
"I love to learn new things and believe that nothing is impossible".
Ling holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Law degree from the University of Sydney.
Ling is a self-motivated junior accountant with the passionate to learn new things all the time. She feels rewarded when she can apply her textbook knowledge to solve real life issues. With a combined law and accounting degree, she is able to help clients with better understanding of relevant tax law. Ling has equipped her data analysing skills through her past data analyst work. She is keen to continually developing and improving her professional skills to provide a better service for all Impact taxation’s clients.
In her spare time, she loves to practice Ashtanga Yoga.
JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT
timothy.woo@impacttfs.com.au
"I am passionate about leveraging my finance and accounting knowledge to provide tailored solutions and strategic guidance for clients."
Currently, in his final year as a finance student at the University of Sydney, Tim is enthusiastic about integrating theoretical knowledge with practical application. This dual perspective allows him to approach financial challenges with a comprehensive understanding.
Before joining Impact Taxation, Tim completed several internships in Finance and Accounting, showcasing a remarkable ability to thrive under pressure and learn quickly. With a high level of intellectual curiosity, Tim is a resourceful and analytical thinker. Focused on clients and solutions, he collaborates with Brenda and the team to assist clients with various financial situations in achieving their goals.
Tim finds solace along hiking trails, where the outdoors becomes a sanctuary. As a dedicated CFA candidate, he thrives on the intellectual challenges of financial analysis. Collectively, these passions create a balanced and fulfilling tapestry, illustrating his commitment to continuous growth.
Contact us now and find out how we can help you achieve your financial goals.
Impact Taxation and Financial Services Pty. Ltd. is a CPA Practice based in the Bankstown area. We are committed to customizing our services to meet your financial needs and help you achieve your visions and goals.
Are you considering buying a property? Do you know you could miss opportunities to save thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars if you don’t plan well before the purchase?
Below are a few key considerations:
1. How should you set up your loan structure? If you don’t have a loan offset account for a rental property, after you make extra payments directly to the loan account, you can only claim interest deduction on the remaining balance of the loan. For tax purposes, this deductible balance can’t be changed even if you redraw the overpaid amount later. A good loan structure could also help you to stabilize interest rate and speed up loan repayment by combining a standard variable loan (with an offset account) and a fix rates account.
2. Timing of renovation. You might want to do a renovation right after you have bought the rental property. But do you know for any genuine repair & maintenance included in the renovation, you can claim an outright deduction against the rental income when the property is available for rental? If the work is done before the date when the property is available for rental, you can only claim the deduction against future capital gain when the property is sold. Depend on when you are going to sell, it could take years or up to decades before you can claim the deduction.
3. How should you split ownership? You might want to share the property ownership with a family member. For tax purposes, the percentage of ownership is based on the legal title, regardless of who is paying more on the mortgage. If the property will give you a tax profit, you might want to allocate more
ownership to the low-income earner to utilize the lower marginal tax rate. If it is giving you a tax loss, you might want to allocate more ownership to the high-income earner to utilize the loss. The goal is for the family to pay minimum tax together.
4. Should you use a family trust to purchase the property? There are many pros and cons related to a family trust. The advantages include tax savings on rental profit or capital gain, asset protection and succession planning on family wealth. However, family trust can’t distribute losses. All losses are trapped in the trust to be used to offset future trust profit. Therefore, you can’t utilize any rental loss in a trust to offset other income such as salary & wages. Family trusts also attract high accounting fees on initial setup and annual fees on financial statements and tax returns. State governments also charge much higher land tax on family trusts.
5. Will the income level change in future years for different owners? You might want to forecast the possible income for different owners to understand total tax payment / savings related to the property. This could also impact on your decision making on point 3 and 4 above.
6. Understand when you can treat your property as main residence to receive an exemption on capital gains tax. When eligible, even if you have received rental income, you could still treat your rental property as main residence and receive the exemption. To be eligible, you will need to treat it as your main residence at the beginning. Please check out this ATO link: Treating former home as main residence.
7. Decide whether you need to purchase a depreciation report. Most taxpayers don’t know that the depreciation on the building will need to be added back to calculate capital gains tax when the property is sold. When the property is held for more than 12 months, after applying the capital gains tax discount of 50%, it will effectively cut the tax rate by half at the time of sales. This makes depreciation deductions desirable for high income earners. However, for low-income earners it might not be ideal to claim depreciation as a rental deduction since they could be paying more on capital gains tax in the future. It could get more complicated if the property is under joint ownership between high and low income earners.
8. You might want to consider Centrelink payments for future or existing owners. Most Centrelink payments are income and asset tested. Before attaching a rental property to a family member who is receiving, or plan to receive government benefits, you might want to check the testing thresholds first to see if the Centrelink payment will be impacted. This is also applicable when you are making distributions from a family trust to different family members.
9. Have you considered using your SMSF (selfmanaged super fund) to make the purchase of a rental property? There are a lot of tax saving opportunities with a SMSF since the income tax rate is only 15%. And the capital gains tax rate is effectively only 10% after factoring in the 1/3 discount. The major downside with a SMSF is normally you can’t get the money out until you retire or on compassionate grounds (SMSF does have more flexibilities compared to normal retail super fund. But the choices are still very limited). It could be expensive to set up and operate a SMSF too. There are also strict legal requirements on the trustees. Penalties on incompliance could be severe. Tax law around SMSF is very complicated too. You will need to find a good tax accountant specialized in SMSF to help you to understand the structure, also do a cost-benefit analysis before setting it up.
10. Consider internal ownership changes. For your existing rental properties, you can also consider whether you should transfer the ownership between family members, or between different business structures (this is not applicable for SMSF). You might want to do this when the income level changes with family members, or rental property changes between tax profit and loss. Before the change, you need to consider the cost of transfer including capital gains tax, stamp duty, conveyancer fees, etc. Again, a cost-benefit analysis is a must before the change.
Last but not the least, did you combine all the above strategies and compare your choices? If you haven’t yet, how would you know that you have picked the best strategy to minimize your taxes? We can help you to factor in all considerations, compare different scenarios, also present you with a Property Prepurchase Report with all our findings to help you to make a decision. Contact us today to book in a consultation with an experienced tax accountant!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
This is general advice only and does not consider your financial circumstances, needs and objectives. Before making any decision based on this document, you should assess your own circumstances or seek advice from your financial adviser and seek tax advice from your accountant.
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