Yesterday, we had a free 1 hour consultation with an Australian tax attorney. Actually, that's not true. a) we only had 45 minutes because the phone number I was given for the conference room at work was incorrect so then we scrambled to find the correct number, couldn't, and ended up calling him at which time he had to find out his conference room phone number for us to call him on; and b) like (it seems) most people here, he is British, not Australian.
In any case, the consulation went quite well on two fronts. The first is that the Australian tax system is very similar to the Canadian tax system. In fact, a lot of systems here are similar to Canada. The commercial contract law, which impacts me greatly at work, is often based on Canadian Supreme Court legal precedence. Just yesterday, I was watching the news and they mentioned a Canadian legal case that was used as a basis for judgement here. The second is that we are eligible for LAFHA (pronounced laugha), the Living Away From Home Allowance. Basically, my employer is able to deduct the entire amount of our rent from my taxable income AND a set amount for food. The food allowance is based on age and at 14, for the purpose of this, you are considered an adult. The boys eat like professional sumo wrestlers so I should hope so. In any case, it makes for a very generous tax savings and drives our taxable income down by about 30% if not more. Not bad. In fact, it's so good it honestly seems a touch unfair to Australian citizens who don't get any such tax breaks unless they are literally sent off to the mines. They make it very easy for people to live and work in Australia temporarily. I think they count on the weather and beaches to convince people to stay and give the government more money.
One significant difference between Oz and Canada is that here it is mandatory that everyone pay 9% (minimum) of their salary into what's called a Superannuation fund, or what Canadians call a RSP. So, if you are working you have a retirement savings no matter how small. You do pay 15% tax on it when it goes in. If we stay here, the money also stays until retirement age at which time you get the money tax free (minus the 15% taxed off the top). If we leave, we get the money minus 35% tax. So, they tax it 15% going in and 35% going out for a total of 50%. So, in essence 4.5% of my salary is being held in trust by the Australian governement (not including interest) until we leave. Interesting system and something that I think many countries would do well to consider.
Yesterday, we also went to look at a vehicle we found online at Gumtree- the Aussie version of Kijiji. The family selling it is *surprise* British and they are moving to Malaysia for another work assignment. Actually, their story is pretty interesting in that they set off as a couple in 2002 with a plan to move every two years to a different country. They are now at the end of their Australian soujorn and are moving onto their last two years in Malaysia. In the meantime, they've had 3 kids along the way, all born in different countries. The car was okay but didn't blow our socks off. Even private sales are brutally expensive for what we're looking for.
Today is Wednesday in Oz. That means it is the day when the car dealerships are open until 9pm. It also means that today is the day that we do some hard-core car shopping. Actually, we have been trying dilligently to find a 7 seater SUV but the market is very dry. Of those that are available, they are either very old and run down, fairly new (2010) and very expensive or gone within 5 minutes of being listed for sale. In any case, we need to find a car because our rental is costing us a fortune. We hope to have a vehicle by this weekend. If so, that will be a major headache resolved. It's even possible that we may have a home by this weekend too. If so, all the up front hard work will be done.
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