sid_s

Has anyone opened an Oz savings account for young kids? I was looking at the BankWest "Children's Saver" which seems to pay 3% but then they have something called "bonus saver" which is apparently an additional 10% on top. Has anyone used this or can recommend an alternative?

ohippy

I looked at childrens accounts but found you get a better rate keeping the money in a normal savings account. Wierd, but true.

Naved

Checkout the Children's account with BankWest. They offer 10%. But it is limited to 250 a month and 3000 and year.

Cheers !!!

arkon

I found too many restrictions on the kids account plus it's messy with your tax. I couldn't get a straight answer about whether or not it was tax free and if so how do you stop them automatically withholing the tax. I gave up in the end and just got a bankwest account paying 6.8%

sid_s

I thought banks didn't automatically withhold tax here?

arkon

They automatically withhold if you don't supply a tax file number, which you need to be greater than 18 to get. Hence my confusion at how kids accounts work when it comes to tax. Even my bank manager doesn't know the answer and he is selling kids accounts! Come back the good old post office account all is forgiven.

sid_s

I did a bit more research on this. You can get a TFN at any age, but if under 12 the parent just has to sign the form.

There's a fair bit of info about it here...
http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/co...tent/11900.htm

from what I understand if the child's DOB is quoted with the account they should be allowed to earn up to $420 a year before any tax is taken. If they're not going to earn more than that then you shouldn't need to bother with a TFN.
But it sounds like you've had problems getting your bank to do this in practice. I'll try at BankWest and see if they can do any better..!

Louis Roi

My kids ( 4 years and 7 months old) have TFN which we have quoted for their bank accounts and share of stocks account.

arkon

Thanks for the info. It was the bank selling the product that didn't know how it worked, so I gave up and decided not to get a specific kids one.

Dreamy

::Adds to list::

My kids are all UK tax payers, and I had enough fun and games insisting on a temporay NI number for them, so that we didn't have to pay full welly tax on their pensions and then claim bulk of it back every year.

Hopefully will be able to sort that quickly when (if!!!) we ever get to Oz.

Lynne

JackTheLad

Do they have any good stocks and shares tips?