Noel Whittaker's Blog
By Noel Whittaker
There is still a lot of confusion about the difference between holding assets as tenants in common and holding them as joint tenants. In this context the term “tenants” doesn’t have a thing to do with landlord and tenant, it refers to ownership of assets such as property and shares. For example, if you buy …
Recently I’ve received a number of emails asking about the death tax of 17 per cent on the taxable portion of a superannuation payout that is left to a non-dependant. In this context, a spouse is always a dependant, whether they are working or not. One way to lessen the death tax is to reduce …
Cigarettes are back in the news with research released this month from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)revealing that 13.8% of Aussie adults consider themselves daily smokers. It’s a sad statistic given the irrefutable evidence of the damage that smoking does both to your health and your finances. Today I’ll give a couple of examples …
Superannuation is back in the news with a raft of recommendations from the Productivity Commission about ways we can make the superannuation system better. One area under scrutiny is Self Managed Superannuation Funds. The view of the commission is that many people running self-managed funds are insufficiently skilled, and often the returns of their funds …
Welcome to a new year – it has certainly started off with the huge degree of volatility. Much of it is due to uncertainty about economic conditions generally thanks to Trump, Brexit, and the ongoing conflict between America and China. But as we move into 2019 with all its hope and uncertainty, remember that there …