Beyond property, many clients have other investments like shares, managed funds, and cryptocurrencies.
Here’s what you need to prepare and consider for these in your tax return:
Shares & Dividends
If you own shares in companies (either directly or through employee stock plans), you might receive dividends or have capital gains/losses if you sold any shares.
Dividends: As noted earlier, dividends from Australian companies often come with franking credits (imputation credits). The taxable income from a franked dividend is dividend + franking credit, and you get the credit back against your tax. For example: You own BHP shares and received a $700 franked dividend with $300 franking credit – you report $1,000 income and a $300 offset (if your marginal tax rate is 30%, that $300 covers the tax; if you’re lower, you get excess back; if higher, you pay the difference). Ensure you provide each dividend statement or a summary showing these amounts. The ATO pre-fill might have some, but it’s not always complete, so we rely on your docs.
Dividend Timing: Include dividends paid (or credited) during the financial year. If a dividend was declared in June but paid in July, it counts in next year. Dividends from foreign companies (e.g., US stocks) don’t have franking credits but often have foreign tax withheld – we declare the gross and claim a foreign tax credit. Provide those details too.
Reinvested Dividends: If you use a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP), you won’t receive cash, but those amounts are still taxable as if received. Also note, each reinvested dividend is a new purchase of shares – keep track of these for capital gains calculations in the future.
Managed Funds and Trusts: If you invest in managed funds, ETFs, unit trusts, investment trusts, you’ll get an Annual Tax Statement after year end.
These can be complex, breaking into many categories: Australian interest, franked dividends, unfranked dividends, capital gains (discounted and undiscounted, indexed, foreign), foreign income, foreign tax credits, tax deferred amounts, etc. It’s crucial we enter each component correctly. These investments are often “flow-through” for tax: you might not have received all in cash (some reinvested), but you’re taxed on your share of the trust’s income. Please bring the full annual statement (often issued by the fund or your broker platform around Aug/Sept). The statement will also note AMIT cost base adjustments or other adjustments – important for tracking cost base. If you have ETFs like Vanguard or Betashares, or managed funds from say Colonial, BT, etc., these statements are needed.
Deductions related: As covered, you might have management fees or interest on loans for these investments – we’ll deduct those in the investment deductions section of your return (interest on share investment loans, etc., goes at Item D8 typically).
Selling Shares/ETF units: If you sold any shares or units during the year, that triggers a CGT event. Provide purchase date and cost, and sale date and proceeds for each parcel. Remember if you participated in any corporate actions (demergers, takeovers) that affect cost base, let us know. If you can’t find historical purchase info, often your broker or registry might help, but try to gather what you can (contract notes, etc.). We will calculate the capital gain or loss.
If you held the asset for > 1 year, you get 50% CGT discount on the gain (for individuals). If you sold at a loss, that loss can offset other gains this year, and any excess carried forward. Note: capital losses only offset capital gains, not other income. But they carry forward indefinitely.
Employee Share Schemes (ESS): If you have shares or options from your employer, taxation can be tricky. Some are taxed when you receive them (or when they vest), others when you sell. Ensure you bring any ESS statements given by your employer. Typically, if you have an ESS that is tax-deferred, you might have a taxing point this year (e.g., left the company and had to pay tax on shares). Those often go at a different part of the return (as income, not capital gain). We’ll handle according to the info. This is less common but worth mentioning.
Share Transaction Records: A helpful thing is to bring a transaction history from your broker (or a spreadsheet) listing all buys and sells, with dates and amounts. That way we can ensure we capture any CGT events and also know what you still hold (for future planning). For tax, we only need to report sales, not current holdings, but knowing holdings helps to chase missing dividend statements.
Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin and Co.)
Cryptocurrency taxation is an evolving area, but here are key points:
Crypto Sales/Trades = CGT events: As mentioned, anytime you sell, trade, or exchange crypto, you trigger a potential capital gain or loss (since crypto is treated as property, not currency, by the ATO). That includes: selling for AUD, trading one crypto for another, using crypto to buy goods or services, and even gifting crypto. If you swap crypto-for-crypto, you have disposed of one (CGT event on that) and acquired another (with new cost base). We need to calculate gains or losses in AUD for each trade. The 50% CGT discount applies if you held the particular coins for >12 months before disposing. Many crypto traders have lots of transactions, so using a crypto tax software or spreadsheet to aggregate is useful.
Records: Ideally, provide a CSV or report from each exchange you used, or use a tool (like Koinly, CryptoTaxCalculator, etc.) to generate a tax report.
At minimum, we need:Date of each disposal
What was disposed
Proceeds in AUD (or crypto quantity which we then value in AUD)
Cost base of what was disposed.
Any fees (exchange trading fees can be deducted from proceeds or added to cost base accordingly).
🕵🏽♀️ If you have hundreds or thousands of trades, definitely use software to summarize – manual calculation is impractical. If you dabbled in DeFi (staking, liquidity pools), that can produce taxable events or income – let’s discuss if that applies, as it can get complex.
Crypto Mining/Staking: If you mined crypto or received staking rewards/airdrop coins, those are typically treated as ordinary income (at the market value when you received them). They also form part of cost base when you eventually sell that crypto. If mining was a significant, business-like endeavor, it might even be business income (with deductions for mining rig depreciation, etc.).
👩🏽💻 For most hobbyist miners, it’s personal exertion income. Provide the amount of coins mined and dates if possible (some mining pools provide annual statements). For staking, often the platform will give you a total of rewards for the year.Personal use exception: In very limited cases, if you used crypto to buy personal goods/services for under $10k and the crypto was mainly acquired for that purpose, it could be disregarded for CGT (personal use asset exemption). This is very narrow – e.g., you occasionally bought some crypto then immediately used it to purchase a laptop. We can consider if any of your crypto transactions qualify, but typically if you held crypto as an investment hoping it goes up, it’s not personal use. The ATO usually does not consider crypto personal use unless it’s like same-day purchase and spend.
Airdrops and Forks: If you got coins from a blockchain fork (like Ethereum fork etc.), or airdropped tokens randomly, there are specific rules. Generally, airdrops are income when received if they have value and you have control. Forks the ATO has said result in no income at time of fork, but the new forked coins have a cost base of zero (effectively all gain when sold). Provide details if this happened.
Lost or Stolen Crypto: If you had crypto stolen (e.g., exchange hack, scam) or lost access (lost keys with no backup), you might be able to claim a capital loss (or an asset loss) if you can prove it. The rules require evidence of loss and that it’s irrecoverable. Discuss with us if relevant.
NFTs: If you dealt with NFTs (non-fungible tokens), treat them similar to crypto: buying and selling NFTs are CGT events (with potentially collectible rules if it’s art and you used it personally – but likely just CGT assets). Provide those details too. The ATO can track crypto via KYC data from exchanges. They have been sending letters to crypto traders in recent years. So please report all relevant transactions; we want to preempt any ATO “please explain” by full disclosure. If you have a huge volume of trades and ended up with net losses, note capital losses won’t give immediate refund (unless you have other gains to absorb them), but still report them to carry forward. If you had big gains, be prepared that you might owe tax – ideally you set aside some money for that (if not, we’ll figure out the exact amount when done).
Other Investments
Foreign Investments: If you have investments overseas (stocks, properties, bank interest abroad), Australian residents must report that income. Often foreign dividends don’t have imputation but might have withholding tax – we claim a Foreign Tax Credit. Make sure to include any U.S. stock dividends (e.g. from Apple, etc. – typically 15% withheld, we gross up and credit), foreign interest, or foreign capital gains if you sold foreign assets. Note foreign exchange can cause gains/losses too if amounts are large.
Crypto Interest or Rewards: Some people lend crypto or use platforms that pay interest (like Celsius, BlockFi historically). If you got interest or rewards in crypto, that’s income valued in AUD when received.
Precious Metals or Collectibles: If you sold gold, silver, or collectibles (art, wine) – these can have CGT implications. Personal use asset rules might exempt some if under certain values (collectibles under $500 acquired cost are exempt; personal use assets under $10k exempt). But investment-grade gold etc. usually not exempt. Provide info if applicable.
Rental from sharing economy: Other than property, if you rented out your car (Car Next Door, etc.) or parking space or tools via apps, that income should be declared (and related costs can be deducted). It’s not common for most, but worth noting as the sharing economy expands.
Crypto to Crypto Example: Just to illustrate, suppose you bought 0.5 BTC in July 2024 for $20,000, and in Dec 2024 you traded 0.5 BTC for 10 ETH (let’s say 0.5 BTC was worth $25,000 at that time). That is a disposal of BTC: proceeds $25k, cost $20k, gain $5k (taxable as short-term since <12 months). You now have 10 ETH with a cost base of $25k (the value on trade date). If you still hold them after June 2025, no further tax yet. If you staked those ETH and earned 0.2 ETH reward by year end, that 0.2 is income (worth maybe $500) – include $500 income and that $500 also adds to cost base of that rewarded ETH (or merged into your existing holding depending on how tracked). – You can see how complex it gets; that’s why providing comprehensive records is crucial, and we’ll use software tools.