saintstu

That, would be excellent news and a seemingly fair and sensible solution. Anyone heard anything else on the matter?

corinne1470

very sad to hear that this is looking like changing in a couple of months as it would have made a few thousand pounds difference but hey ho! Other people exploiting it as usual has spoilt it for the rest.

Pollyana

Threads merged

saintstu

Has there been any further news on this story?

The original announcement was in November, but I've still not seen or heard any confirmation that LAFHA will be gone (for ex-pats at least) from July.

monkeyalan

There are a few interesting consultation replies online if you google ,one of which seems to suggest it may not even be legal to just cut it off without a transitional period but other than that, nothing.

saintstu

I've googled news stories, but nothing as interesting as that comes up. Could you provide a link please?

spectralcluster

I used to get LAFHA. As other people have mentioned, if you have a family on a 457 and live in NSW then it's not clear just how beneficial it is. It's not just issues related to school fees, overseas visitor’s health cover, credit availability but also the risk of having to leave the country at short notice if you lose your job for whatever reason - what price do you put on that? I couldn't move to PR fast enough. For a single person it's a different matter.

One could argue that to a large extent LAFHA is an indirect rental subsidy benefitting landlords. In areas like the Northern Beaches they won’t be celebrating its potential demise anytime soon.

monkeyalan

http://moorestephensresources.com.au...ion/Page1.html

http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?acti...02080819306426

theres a PDF on one of these that goes into quite alot of detail i think , not got time to check if its the right one at the moment.

rld1177

Ive been in Melbourne one week and have LAFHA lined up as soon as I confirm perm housing expenses, so if it cuts out I will only have it for 3 months but firms still seem to be lining it up for people. Note this was based on a 2 hour discussion with PWC tax in the USA, UK, and Australia (I am american, but lived in the UK for 8 years) and their view was it was 'likely' there might be a transitional arrangement, probably with a cap (over 200K no LAFHA, the usual free things to married with kids types vs singles (Singles might get 3 months transition, couples 6, married a year, that kind of thing). They told me a lot of the intial complaints were due to over 250K types landed it and living in 4K a month flats but I have no idea the initial politics behind it.

Id also add that people on these threads talking about costs were not joking - I moved from Denver, USA where I could get a 2 liter of Coke for 99 cents and just shake my head at them going for 4.5 here - but hey at least everything is 'made in Australia' so it is OK to pay 4 times as much for basic food items. I do seriously wonder how people support familes on 75k here even - Id estimate 75K here is like 30K in the USA if not 25K in cities outside of NYC - even NYC Id guess 45K gets you the same lifestyle. (I lived there for 3 years so have a sense for prices).

saintstu

Thanks for putting these up

monkeyalan

no probs

yon might find this interesting too.

http://www.lafha-info.com/will-the-g...y-1-july-2012/

looks like someone didn't think this through properly.

bingobob777

http://www.activpayroll.com/news-art...from-officials

With just over two months to go and no Treasury announcements or legislation yet in sight, unofficial Treasury comments suggest that companies should act as if LAFHA will become taxable on 1 July 2012.

RedDragon2008

We recently had a tax audit where they literally went back 5 years over all LAFHA cases to review if the accomodation and food allowances were within reason.

While they did not find any issue as we maintain a robust policy, it makes you wonder the implications where junior managers on $120k were living in $2k per week properties.

It was suggested that if that occured the company would be liable for the FBT and penalties. Which raises thequestion on whether or how they wouldrecoup that from the employee?

paddyo

$2000 a week?? Jeez, thats ridiculous. But, as far as LAFHA goes, the property has to be a 'reasonable cost' for the locality and that is a really stupid way of defining anything. What is reasonable to one person could be intolerable to another and vice versa. So, if someone can get away with it then fine but its taking the p!ss a bit.

heldownunder

Hubby's firm limited it to 20k a year which is $550 a week for family of four (we pay slightly more) his conpany didnt take the piss, I wish more hadnt..