It’s tax time and while many of us might shudder and put it off, we should relish the thought of a legitimate tax refund. Unfortunately, many people only think of tax when it is time to lodge their return. In fact, I recently heard that there is more than $1 billion of legitimate deductions that…
Articles by Ken Raiss
Ken is director of Metropole Wealth Advisory and gives strategic expert advice to property investors, professionals and business owners. He is in a unique position to blend his skills of accounting, wealth advisory, property investing, financial planning and small business. View his articles
When someone is building their career, they usually have so many different things to think about that they forget some of the most important issues. What I mean is that they forget to think about the future as they’re so caught up in the present. Take, one of my clients, Thomas, for example. He has…
Did you know that there are now more than 600,000 Self-Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSF) in Australia? Plus the average fund balance is more than $1 million? SMSFs have soared in popularity over the past decade, especially because funds can purchase certain types of property to help grow their retirement wealth position. However, as outlined in…
Self-Managed Superannuation Funds or SMSFs provide another avenue for people to create and manage their wealth. Unfortunately, like many other highly regulated financial tools, they can be quite complex. In fact, there a number of common errors that people often make in SMSFs, which can be avoided with professional advice from the outset, of course….
Property investment is one of best wealth creation strategies out there. In part because it has a long history of solid performance, so is therefore relatively low risk. It’s important to understand, however, that it is not completely without risk. That’s because every investment opportunity has an element of risk. The trick is to manage…
They say blood is thicker than water but when it comes to distributing your wealth, human instinct can take on a darker side because money is involved. People often feel vulnerable when contemplating their death, but this is no excuse to not have a Will. It’s vital that you receive legal advice when preparing your…
Why is it important to understand the difference between a repair or an improvement to your investment property? The property investor is often grappling with whether an expense is a repair or an improvement. This is critical because a repair can be written off immediately whereas an improvement must be written off over a longer…
Australia is becoming a more litigious society with more people considering suing and more lawyers opting to take on their cases for no upfront fee. While the number of law suits in Australia is growing, we’re still a fair way from the situation in the USA, where people have a 33 per cent change of…
There are a growing number of people in Australia wanting to create wealth by undertaking a small property development. Unfortunately, many people attempt it when they don’t have the knowledge or the know-how, and they end up financially worse off than they were before. Others, while clearly capable of managing the project, don’t set up…
Do you know the difference between productive and unproductive debt? In my experience, too many people have too much unproductive debt, and not enough debt that actually works for them productively to increase their wealth over time. The debt equation I had a conversation with someone recently who was considering paying off their home loan…
