Commentary topic
Tax depreciation is part of an ownership strategy, not a yearly afterthought. These articles connect claims made during a hold with cash flow, records and the after-tax position at exit.
Selected published reading on this subject.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
The ATO has expanding access to property transaction and rental data, but long-term owners may struggle to prove decades of improvement costs and capital works adjustments. Mark Kilroy explains why accurate CGT cost-base records should be assembled before a property is sold.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
Australia's tax system now gives qualifying Build-to-Rent developments a 4% Division 43 capital works deduction — a 25-year write-off — while an ordinary Australian buying one new investment property claims 2.5% over 40 years. Mark Kilroy examines what the Build-to-Rent depreciation concession means for who owns Australian housing: on $100 million of construction expenditure, the accelerated rate is worth an extra $1.5 million in deductions each year. With superannuation holding roughly $4.44 trillion and institutions like Aware Super building 2,000+ rental homes, the piece asks why the same accelerated-depreciation principle isn't extended to individuals who fund genuinely new dwellings, what institutional ownership means for smaller developers who rely on pre-sales, and why housing supply and home ownership supply are not the same thing.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
Property owners have spent decades focused on annual deductions while ignoring what may become their largest tax bill: Capital Gains Tax at sale. Mark Kilroy argues the real blind spot is evidence — invoices lost, builders retired, depreciation schedules outdated — leaving owners unable to prove the capital expenditure that forms their property's cost base. With CGT rules changing from 1 July 2027, the question is no longer what you can claim this year, but whether you could justify every dollar of your cost base if you sold tomorrow.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
The May budget is days away and commentary on CGT, negative gearing and depreciation is running hot. But almost nobody is engaging with the mechanism that connects what you claim while you hold a property to what you pay when you sell it. Here's what the policy debate is missing.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
When depreciation is understood properly, it plays a quiet but critical role in whether investors can afford to hold assets through the most pressured years of ownership.