Hi everyone
Here is our situation: we became permanent residents in Australia in 2013 and moved overseas to Switzerland in 2020. We own a house in Switzerland (bought in 2006) that we live in now. We own some shares which are managed through a bank in Switzerland.
We have no plans to return to Australia in the foreseeable future. We own no property and have no income in Australia (apart from interest from our savings accounts in Australia).
As we understand it, we have 2 options for dealing with CGT:
- Disregard the deemed CGT event and file $Nil returns each year until the assets are sold. This defers the tax but keeps the assets in the Australian tax system.
- Include the deemed CGT event in our FY2021 return, settle any liabilities now and avoid further obligations.
Option 2 is tricky but our preference. Our house may have increased in market value (2013 - 2020) and some of our shares have also increased in value. Coupled with an unfavorable FX conversion, this could result in a significant CGT liability. Even though we do not intend to sell the house and have not sold any shares during our stay in Australia, we may have to pay tax on assets where we have not realized capital gains.
We are wondering if this interpretation of the situation is correct. Can anyone confirm or advise?
There is a tax treaty between Switzerland and Australia. Does this support our situation in any way?
I'm looking forward to any feedback - it would certainly be appreciated.
483 views
1 replies