Two Budget reforms are now sitting on top of each other for anyone holding property, and Payday Super changed how every business pays its staff. Here is the plain version of each, written by the person who has to lodge it.
Newest first. Tax and compliance, plus the six-part credit thesis on what is actually holding this market back.
Six senior people were asked when this downturn ends and the answers ran from "already at the bottom" to "a full-blown recession". Morgan Stanley's three markers for the end of the slump, none of them currently lit — and why the end date is the wrong question when the only asset an agency can sell is already changing hands.
The money didn't leave — it moved. The reform redirected investors rather than removing them, into new stock that has just become the hardest thing in the country to finance. Development debt repriced 30 to 50 basis points before Bathla collapsed owing $3.4 billion, and completions are running 173,400 a year against the 240,000 the Accord requires.
Selling the family home and handing some of it to the children is one of the most common plans we hear. Give away a sum above the permitted limits and the excess is assessed against you as though you still own it, for years after the money has gone. The four questions worth answering before anything is signed — and who to ask each one of.
Run a full 10% correction to completion and the Brisbane house yield moves from about 3.2% to 3.6%. An investor needs roughly 5.15%. Enough to hurt every vendor, not enough to bring back a single buyer.
Replacement cost is a supply-side floor. A developer's spreadsheet has never cleared a transaction — a bank's serviceability calculation does. The floor only operates at the fringe, which is exactly where the buyer is weakest.
Rents are bounded by what households can pay, and the rate assumption underneath that figure has moved. A third outcome nobody models: the market freezes rather than clears. Around half of Australian small business credit is secured against residential property.
Two separate reforms from the same Budget now interact. Every property held across 1 July 2027 is treated as sold and reacquired at that day's market value — and the ATO's free apportionment formula assumes steady growth, which is exactly what a renovation is not. The formula understates a renovated property's value, pushing more of the eventual gain into the bucket with no discount at all. Includes flow charts for both tests.
Negative gearing was quarantined, not abolished. Three categories, one cutoff date, and the one exemption most coverage skipped — plus why it is already thinning the buyer pool.
Since 1 July 2026, superannuation must reach staff at the same time as their wages rather than quarterly. For any business that had been using that 90-day gap to smooth cash flow through slow months, the buffer is permanently gone — and a missed payment is now visible to the ATO immediately.
When properties take an extra 45 to 60 days to sell, fixed costs do not pause. Market figures quoted are from August 2026.
Fifteen minutes, no preparation needed, and no charge. Bring whatever's on your mind — year-end accounts, a company or trust return, SMSF, BAS, or something you read above.