BAN TACS Financial Solutions

BAN TACS Financial Solutions The financial planning arm of BAN TACS Accountants established so clients receive accurate, reliable & objective advice on financial planning and Insurance

Monday Money Talk with Noel WhittakerLast week was Scams Awareness Week. The figures are frightening: Australians report...
07/09/2026

Monday Money Talk with Noel Whittaker

Last week was Scams Awareness Week. The figures are frightening: Australians reported 91,767 scams in the first six months of this year, with a massive $156.6 million stolen. Most of that money will never be recovered.
Someone who knows the problem well is billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who has spent over $60 million fighting Meta over scam advertisements circulating on Meta platforms using his name and image to promote bogus investments. The issue became very personal when his father rang to complain about Forrest’s latest “initiative”. His friends had piled in and lost their money. Forrest was horrified; he had nothing to do with it.
And this is not new. Scammers have been using Twiggy’s likeness in thousands of deceptive advertisements since 2019. He is now pursuing Meta through the US courts, arguing that the social media giant should be held accountable for scam advertisements appearing on its platforms. Meta denies wrongdoing.
But it’s not just Twiggy. A parade of well-known Australians, from Gina Rinehart to Kochie, have supposedly been endorsing fabulous investment opportunities online. All of them are fake.
Most of these scams are on Facebook, and they are becoming more sophisticated by the day. Just last week a startling headline appeared online: “Jacqui Lambie arrested at ABC Ultimo,” complete with a convincing photograph of Senator Lambie apparently being held by police.
But that was only the beginning. The fake story included a remarkably realistic account of an alleged confrontation on ABC’s Insiders between Lambie and Angus Taylor. She supposedly accused him of being a silvertail, hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Australians, while Taylor was portrayed as trying to stop her revealing an investment opportunity that could make ordinary people wealthy.
It looked like a genuine news story. It had well-known politicians, a respected television program, photographs, and a plausible political argument. But the whole thing was a beautifully constructed fiction. The sting was waiting at the bottom: to discover the investment Lambie supposedly did not want you to miss, simply click on the link. Just to make sure, I rang the senator’s office. They told me they had been bombarded with calls since the fake story appeared on Facebook.
That is the scammer’s first objective: get your attention and start a conversation. Once the conversation begins, the real work starts.
An 87-year-old retiree saw an advertisement promising big returns from trading silver and clicked on the link. A well-spoken man contacted him, patiently explained how it all worked and convinced him everything was legitimate. There was just one suggestion: move his banking from Westpac to ING, because ING was supposedly “much easier to deal with”. He did. Once the change was made, the scammer moved in. The man’s entire superannuation disappeared.
Then there is the 50-year-old single woman in California who met her dream man on a dating app. He was handsome, attentive and rang every day. He asked all the right questions and seemed genuinely interested in her life. In her words, “He seemed like the perfect partner.” The relationship continued for six months. He claimed to live in Chicago, but despite their regular phone calls they didn’t meet – he said they should get to know each other better before he made the long trip to see her.
Early in the relationship he casually mentioned that he worked in sales and traded cryptocurrency as a hobby. Nothing serious, he said – just the occasional small bet. Eventually he suggested she try it herself, starting with just $50 through a crypto trading website he recommended. The profits appeared almost immediately.
That was the hook. She gradually invested more and watched her supposed balance grow beyond anything she had imagined. Eventually he persuaded her to put all her savings into crypto. At the rate her investment was growing, she would soon have enough to pay off her mortgage.
You can guess what happened next: the money disappeared, the relationship ended, and her dream man vanished. The impressive trading website was an almost perfect copy of a genuine crypto site. There had never been any investments or any profits. The boyfriend, the romance and the fortune on the screen were all fictions. Her money was the only thing that had been real.
Scammers are relentless. A mortgage broker told me about a retired couple, both on the full age pension, who already had two mortgages secured against different properties. They borrowed more money for what they believed would be a short-term cryptocurrency investment. Before long, their “trader” delivered the wonderful news that their investment had quadrupled. Naturally, they decided it was time to take their profits.
That was when the alarm bells finally rang. The trader told them they had made so much money that the ATO had assessed capital gains tax of nearly $50,000 – and their investment could not be released until they paid the $50,000 to him, so he could pass it on to the ATO. Fortunately, they contacted their accountant before sending another cent. He immediately knew something was wrong. The fabulous profits disappeared; the trader disappeared; and the whole house of cards came crashing down.
The lesson is simple. The scammers don’t need to fool everybody all the time — they just need to fool you once. Never, ever invest because of something you see on social media, never transfer money on the instructions of a stranger, and never be rushed. If the opportunity is genuine, it will still be there tomorrow.

Monday Money Talk with Noel WhittakerIt's now more than three months since the May Budget was handed down, and the fallo...
31/08/2026

Monday Money Talk with Noel Whittaker

It's now more than three months since the May Budget was handed down, and the fallout continues unabated. This legislation reminds me of an architect under pressure to get a building up in a hurry: the design is poor, construction rushed, and the cracks appear almost immediately. Treasury has been racing around with the toolbox, patching one crack after another. The trouble is that every time it fixes one problem, another appears somewhere else. This isn't sensible tax reform; it's emergency maintenance on legislation that should never have left the drawing board.
The first example is testamentary trusts. These are trusts created under your will, so an inheritance can be managed for a beneficiary rather than simply handed to them.
Take a family with four children and a $4 million estate. The eldest son is a builder, the second a gambler, the daughter is in a rocky marriage, and the youngest is sixteen. Hand each $1 million and imagine the possibilities. The builder goes broke and his creditors take the lot. The gambler does what gamblers do. The daughter's marriage collapses and a large chunk disappears with the departing husband. And nobody in their right mind would hand $1 million outright to a sixteen-year-old.
The solution has always been to establish four testamentary trusts. The money is still there for the children; it simply has protection. As estate-planning lawyer Rachael Rofe puts it: "A testamentary trust is not a tax dodge. It is a set of protective walls around an inheritance."
Then Treasury came along with its new 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts. The Budget exempted existing testamentary trusts, but a testamentary trust doesn't normally exist until somebody dies. You may have a perfectly valid will containing testamentary trusts, but if you were still alive on Budget night, those trusts didn't yet exist and could therefore be caught.
There was an immediate uproar: estate-planning specialists pointed out that these trusts aren’t elaborate tax dodges but long-established structures designed primarily to protect beneficiaries. Treasury suggested people could use fixed trusts instead, but this misses the point: it’s their flexibility that makes discretionary testamentary trusts so useful.
So out came the repairs toolbox: Treasury announced an exemption from the proposed 30% minimum tax on discretionary trust income for testamentary trusts. One crack has been patched, but there are plenty more appearing.
And it’s unfinished business. This exemption has been announced by Treasury but has not yet appeared in legislation. As always with tax reform, the announcement is the easy part. The legislation is where you find out what devils are hiding in the detail.
What the latest exposure draft does do is give testamentary trusts, along with deceased estates, an exemption from the proposed 30% minimum tax on capital gains. The less good news is that two obvious problems – what happens when assets transfer on death or divorce without a sale – have been identified but left for another day.
The new CGT regime starts on 1 July 2027. It replaces the general 50% CGT discount for individuals and trusts with cost-base indexation and introduces a 30% minimum tax on capital gains. For assets already owned, the gain is divided between the periods before and after 1 July 2027, with any resulting liability deferred until a later realisation event.
The problem comes when an asset changes hands without being sold – commonly from a deceased estate to a beneficiary or between separating spouses. Nobody has cashed out, yet the transfer can trigger the deferred gain, and the tax on it. Treasury agrees that shouldn't happen, as no money has changed hands, but has left the fix to yet another tranche of amendments.
Strangely, the same problem has already been dealt with under the proposed negative gearing rules. A surviving spouse, co-owner or family-law transferee can inherit the previous owner's status and retain the negative gearing exemption. The principle has therefore been accepted in one part of the legislation but not yet dealt with in the CGT provisions.
Under the draft, qualifying capital gains attributed to an individual beneficiary of a testamentary trust or deceased estate won't automatically be pushed up to the new 30% minimum tax rate. Broadly, the concession applies to assets coming from the deceased estate and investments derived from them, not from unrelated family assets subsequently dumped into the trust.
But who sells, and when, can now carry a significant tax cost. Rofe puts it neatly: "The concession is real, but it is fragile." Sell inside the estate and the concession can apply; hand the asset over first and it may be lost.
That makes estate planning more important, not less. Rofe says wills containing testamentary trusts should be reviewed, where possible, because the tax rules around them have moved dramatically. Her point is particularly important for older wills: the structures may still work perfectly well, but they were drafted for a different tax regime.
And then there's record-keeping. Under the proposed continuity rules, a beneficiary receiving an asset in specie will generally be treated as having acquired it when the deceased did. Executors may therefore need records of purchase, improvements and previous rollovers going back decades; a valuation at death will most likely no longer be enough. So keep the paperwork.
Where does this leave us? Testamentary trusts already provide valuable protection for beneficiaries, and they will secure an important CGT concession when the legislation amendment passes. But whether an asset is sold inside an estate or trust, or distributed first and sold later, will become much more important.
Government has acknowledged that these problems exist and promised that the legislative tools will arrive later. We are left to wait and see what will actually be delivered.

Noel Whittaker is the author of Retirement Made Simple, Wills Death and Taxes and numerous other books on personal finance. Email: [email protected]

25/08/2026

Newsflash 398 out now!

Another long list of warnings about problems with the poorly written budget.

https://www.bantacs.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Newsflash-398.pdf

Monday Money Talk with Noel WhittakerSuperannuation has suddenly become everybody’s favourite pot of money.Last month Pr...
24/08/2026

Monday Money Talk with Noel Whittaker

Superannuation has suddenly become everybody’s favourite pot of money.
Last month Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was “real potential” to see our super funds as “a national asset” that could produce better returns not just for individuals and retirees, but “for the nation”. That immediately raises the question: whose money is it? Pauline Hanson has come at it from the opposite direction: “It is their money.” With Australians struggling with mortgages and the cost of living, she believes the rules should be loosened so people can get their hands on more of their super when they need it.
Then there’s the Liberal Party. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor leads a party that has already advocated letting Australians use their super to help buy a home. On television last Monday night he went further: “It’s the people’s money. They should be able to do what they like with it.” And then, almost inevitably, the aptly named Senator Andrew Bragg weighed in, declaring superannuation one of the biggest public policy failures since Federation.
So now we have three very different approaches to the same $4.5 trillion pot of money. The Prime Minister sees it as a national asset. Pauline Hanson wants people to have greater access to it. The Liberals say it’s the people’s money and they should be able to decide what to do with it. It’s a debate worth having, because behind all the politics lies one fundamental question: whose money is your superannuation?
To answer that, let’s go back to the architect of our modern superannuation system, former Prime Minister Paul Keating. He once told me: “I wanted an Australia where every worker would have money put away for their retirement, professionally managed so they could benefit from compound interest, and protected until they reached preservation age.” It was a simple idea, but its impact has been profound.
In the early 1990s compulsory employer super started at just 3%. Over the years it was gradually increased, with the final step to 12% reached only last year. It was hardly a smooth journey. There were repeated attempts to stall the increases and, at one stage, enormous pressure to freeze the guarantee at 9%. Fortunately, the system survived, and millions of Australians are better off because it did.
I’ll never forget an email I received from a 66-year-old woman. “I have no home, and my only asset is $250,000 in super. How will I cope in retirement?” I explained that at 67 she would qualify for an indexed age pension of around $30,000 a year for life and could also draw about $18,000 a year from her super – enough to last until at least 90. Her reply said it all: “Thank you. You’ve put my mind at rest.” For people like her, super means choices, dignity and independence.
Critics of compulsory super have always argued that workers would be better off getting the money now instead of having it locked away for decades. It sounds attractive, but it ignores one basic fact: human nature. People adapt their spending to whatever lands in their bank account. They don’t miss the 12% going into super any more than they miss the tax withheld from their wages. But they certainly notice that money when they retire.
Take a 40-year-old earning $55,000 a year who already has $100,000 in super. Their employer contributes $6,600 a year. If that money were paid as wages instead, tax would take 30% and the rest would almost certainly disappear into everyday spending. Without compulsory super, much of that money would simply vanish over a lifetime, leaving the age pension to do far more of the heavy lifting.
Now leave the money in super. Assume wages rise by 3% a year and the fund earns an average 8%, and by 65 our worker could have around $1.3 million in super. Of course, $1.3 million in 25 years won’t buy what $1.3 million buys today. At 2.5% inflation, it would be worth roughly $700,000 in today’s money. But that’s still $700,000 of retirement wealth that probably would never have existed.
And that is the genius of compulsory super: it happens automatically. The money is invested before it can be spent, compound interest is given decades to work its magic, and people who may never have thought of themselves as investors can reach retirement owning a substantial portfolio.
There are, however, two ways super can sensibly be used to help people into their first home without simply turning it into an ATM.
The first was the Liberal proposal to allow first-home buyers to take up to 40% of their super, capped at $50,000, to help with a deposit. The important part was that the money was not simply gone forever. When the home was eventually sold, the amount withdrawn would be returned to super, together with a share of the capital gain. In other words, it gave young people a leg up into the housing market while protecting their retirement savings.
The other is the existing First Home Super Saver Scheme. This works differently. Prospective first-home buyers make extra voluntary contributions to super, taking advantage of its concessional tax treatment, and can later withdraw eligible contributions plus associated earnings to help fund their deposit. Up to $15,000 of eligible contributions from any one financial year can count towards the scheme, with a maximum of $50,000 available for release, plus associated earnings.
The crucial thing about these proposals is that they do not simply raid the compulsory super put away for retirement. One effectively lends them some of their super to buy a home and requires it to be restored later; the other uses super as a tax-effective vehicle to build a deposit. Both preserve the basic principle of keeping super to fund retirement. That’s very different from opening up everybody’s super whenever money gets tight.
That’s why we should be very careful when politicians start eyeing that $4.5 trillion pot. It may be called a national asset. It may be tempting to raid it for housing, mortgages or today’s cost-of-living pressures. But Keating’s original principle remains the right one: superannuation is the worker’s money, put aside for one purpose – to give them a better retirement.
Once we start treating it as money for anything else, we risk destroying the very thing that made it work. Superannuation is more than economic policy. It’s a social contract. It asks people to give up a little today so they can have much more tomorrow. And its great strength is beautifully simple: it happens automatically.

Noel Whittaker is the author of Retirement Made Simple, Wills Death and Taxes and numerous other books on personal finance. Email: [email protected]

Monday Money Talk with Noel WhittakerSometimes a small event starts a cascade and problems escalate. A classic case was ...
17/08/2026

Monday Money Talk with Noel Whittaker

Sometimes a small event starts a cascade and problems escalate. A classic case was the woman who checked her bank balance at an ATM and was told she had $30. She withdrew the $30, unaware that a $2 balance enquiry fee had already reduced her account to $28. The withdrawal pushed her into overdraft, triggering another $30 fee. Suddenly, a woman who thought she had $30 owed the bank money.
The story made headlines across the country and caused such an uproar that the rules surrounding ATM fees and overdrafts were changed. One tiny transaction had exposed a system that was simply unfair.
We may be watching the same sort of cascade now with the Government's new tax rules.
Senator David Pocock, an ardent opponent of these new rules, has highlighted the case of a 44-year-old domestic violence survivor negotiating a divorce settlement. She had planned to keep an investment property she had owned for more than 15 years. Her solo finance was pre-approved. Then the tax rules changed and the approval was withdrawn.
Three lenders have since rejected her refinancing – not because of her income, credit record or the value of the property, but because of the new negative gearing rules. She may now be forced to sell the asset she has spent years building for retirement. Pocock says family lawyers in Canberra are reporting similar behaviour from lenders, with the new rules already affecting family law settlements.
And what is the Government's response? Basically: we're looking into it. Changes may be made later in the year.
But that's not the end of it. The legislation has become so complex that even tax experts are struggling to work out what it means. It's hard to resist the conclusion that nobody in Treasury fully understands the monster they've created either.
Take family trusts. One obvious question is whether a discretionary family trust will be able to get a refund of excess franking credits under the new rules. You would think the answer would be a no-brainer. Of course it would.
But when I put the question to Treasury, the answer was anything but clear. A spokesperson said the Government's consultation paper had “sought views” on the treatment of excess franking credits remaining after the trustee had met its tax liabilities. The consultation period closed on 31 July and the Government is considering the feedback. In other words, these laws have been rushed through and we still don't know the answer to a basic question about how they will work.
And then there is the new CGT “realisation event” definition, which looks set to become a widow's tax.
An email from a reader highlights the problem. He wrote: “My understanding is that a death after 1 July 2027 does not create an immediate CGT liability. The beneficiary can still inherit the shares in specie and pay CGT only when they are eventually sold.
“Yet your articles say the opposite – that a death after 1 July 2027 can trigger an immediate CGT liability in the estate. You are the only commentator I have found taking that view, and I would have expected far more public outcry if this really amounted to a secret death tax. I can only hope I have misunderstood you or, heaven forbid, that you are wrong.”
Fair question. So I went back to tax expert Julia Hartman of Bantacs, who confirms that what I wrote is correct under the legislation as it currently stands.
On 4 August 2026, the Government released draft legislation containing proposed corrections, but unfortunately none that fixes this problem. There are, however, cryptic comments in the explanatory memorandum acknowledging problems with rollovers and indicating they may be dealt with in future amendments. At least that suggests the Government is aware of the issue.
The reason it has received so little media attention is simple: the legislation is extraordinarily technical. But that makes it even more important to keep the issue in the spotlight and pressure the Government to fix it. It is astonishing that such an important defect was not corrected in this latest round of amendments.
Here's the problem in plain English.
To preserve the 50% CGT discount on gains accrued up to 1 July 2027, the legislation effectively deems a CGT event to have occurred at that time. The tax is not payable immediately because another provision defers payment until a “realisation event” occurs.
And that's where the trap lies.
The definition of a realisation event is extraordinarily wide and includes just about any change of ownership. Death is one of those events because, when you die, ownership of your assets passes to your estate.
Because you were alive on 1 July 2027, the capital gain accrued before that date has effectively been separated from the rollover provisions that would normally allow assets to pass to your estate and beneficiaries without triggering an immediate tax bill. When death becomes the realisation event, that deferred pre-1 July 2027 gain becomes taxable.
That's why I call it a widow's tax. You don't have to sell the asset. You don't have to receive any money. Someone simply has to die.
It is difficult to believe that the detour away from the normal rollover provisions and into this new concept of a realisation event could have been designed without somebody appreciating the consequences for involuntary transfers, including death and divorce.
The good news is that the Government now appears to recognise there is a problem. The bad news is that it still hasn't fixed it.
And given the way this legislation has been handled, I would not assume that eventual amendments will restore the position to what it was before. We need to keep the pressure on and make sure it is fixed properly.
Otherwise, before we know it, 1 July 2027 will be upon us – and this extraordinary death, divorce and disaster tax will be law.

Monday Money Talk with Noel WhittakerThe Five Numbers You Need to Know When Choosing Aged CareAs Australia's population ...
10/08/2026

Monday Money Talk with Noel Whittaker

The Five Numbers You Need to Know When Choosing Aged Care

As Australia's population ages, more and more people face the challenge of helping a parent move into aged care. It’s stressful for many reasons, and what people often overlook is that it can also be one of the most tricky financial decisions a family will ever make. Age Care guru Rachel Lane explains that aged care can be a financial minefield, and unless you understand the five separate fees involved – and your options for paying them – it's easy to make very expensive mistakes.
When most families begin looking at aged care homes, they focus on one number: the Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD). That's understandable. It's the largest figure you'll see, often around $500,000, though it can be as high as $3 million. It's also the number featured most prominently on aged care websites and brochures. But concentrating on the RAD is a mistake, because it is only one part of the overall cost of aged care. There are now five separate fees that determine what you will pay. Understanding them before signing an aged care agreement could save you many thousands of dollars.
The RAD is your accommodation cost: the lump sum price for your room. If you choose to pay by RAD, 2% will be deducted each year of your stay up to a cap of 10%. Alternatively, you can pay by Daily Accommodation Payment (DAP), calculated at a government-set interest rate on any unpaid RAD, currently 8.43% and indexed. Or you can combine the two by paying part as a lump sum and the balance as a daily payment. You can even deduct the daily payment from your lump sum. Many people assume paying the full RAD is always the best option. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. The right answer depends on your investments, your pension entitlement, your cash flow and how it will impact the overall cost of your aged care.
Every resident pays the Basic Daily Fee. It is set at 85% of the single basic age pension, currently $67 a day, and helps cover everyday services such as meals, cleaning, laundry and utilities. Because it is linked to the age pension, it increases whenever pension rates are adjusted. This is one fee you can safely assume will apply regardless of your financial circumstances.
Think of the Hotelling Fee as contributing towards the hospitality side of aged care. It helps pay for services such as meals, housekeeping, linen services and maintaining comfortable communal areas. Unlike the Basic Daily Fee, not everyone pays the same amount: your contribution depends on your assets and income. This fee is capped at $22 a day.
The Non-Clinical Care Contribution fee is designed to help fund personal support such as assistance with showering, dressing, mobility and other everyday activities that are not clinical or medical in nature. Like the Hotelling Fee, it is means tested, but in this case the cap is $107 a day. There are two other limits on this fee. The first is a lifetime cap of $137,917, which includes contributions paid under the Support at Home program before entering residential aged care. The second protection is a four-year limit. Even if you have not reached the lifetime cap, you will stop paying the Non-Clinical Care Contribution after four years.
-
Many aged care homes offer optional premium services. These may include premium menu choices, w**e with meals and entertainment packages, which attract a Higher Everyday Living Fee. These vary greatly from one establishment to another.
Understanding these five fees is the first step in calculating the cost of aged care. But they don't represent all of your expenses. These are the costs of receiving care – not your total cost of living. You will still need money for personal items such as medications, clothing, hairdressing, and other discretionary spending. Don't confuse the cost of care with the cost of living.
Another big mistake people make is concentrating on the fees without considering how they will fund them. But how you pay can be just as important as what you pay. Should you sell the family home or keep it? Should you pay the RAD or preserve your savings and pay a Daily Accommodation Payment? Should you use superannuation or cash to fund your care? These decisions don't just affect your bank balance. They can influence your age pension entitlement, your means-tested fees (the hotelling and non-clinical care payments), your cash flow and your estate planning. That's why aged care isn't only about finding the right home. It's also about developing the right financial strategy.
Take Margaret as an example. She is a full age pensioner with a home worth $1.3m and $250,000 in investments who moves into an aged care home with a $700,000 Refundable Accommodation Deposit.
The obvious choice may seem to be to sell the house to pay the RAD. If she does that she will pay the Basic Daily Fee ($67/day), the Hotelling Fee ($22/day) and the Non-Clinical Care Contribution ($107/day). She may also pay a Higher Everyday Living Fee. Her pension will be $10,943p.a.
If she keeps her home she will pay the basic daily fee and the hotelling fee and zero non clinical care contribution. She will need to pay a DAP on any unpaid RAD. If we assume the unpaid RAD is $500,000 the DAP would be $115/day (indexed). She would keep her age pension ($32,223p.a) for 2 years while her home is exempt.
So Margaret's biggest financial decision isn't simply whether she can afford the RAD. It is also how best to pay for her care. She could sell her home or use savings; she could pay some or all of the RAD. Each option would produce a different outcome for her age pension, cash flow and aged care costs.
So when you are comparing aged care homes, first make sure you understand all five fees. Then consider carefully how you will pay them. A small change in the way you fund your aged care can save tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your stay. That decision can be every bit as important as choosing the home itself.

Address

43 Sydney Street
Mackay, QLD
4740

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 5pm
Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when BAN TACS Financial Solutions posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category