Black Sheep

Help!!

We have just a day or two left to decide whether or not to refinance our home in USA, with intention of renting it out (investment/fall back option) if we get NZ PR. Problem is, houses appear to be more expensive in NZ (Christchurch in particular) than we had expected, and we're thinking we may find ourselves having to sell at some point to be able to afford what we want in NZ.

We don't have capital gains tax here anymore on sale of primary residence, so situation is a bit different from UK I believe. However, if I understood correctly from a recent post, once you gain PR (in Oz, therefore presumably also in NZ), you're liable for Oz/NZ capital gains tax when you sell your property. Is this true, and if so, how does it work?

One poster thought the amount of tax would somehow be calculated based on when you gained PR, anyone have more info on that? I realize now we already have a problem, whether we refinance or not, if this is true, as we wouldn't dream of selling our property anyway until we actually had PR in hand, nor would most people I'd guess. What am I missing here??

Refinancing costs a fair bit, and don't want to go ahead with it until we're sure what the implications might be if we suddenly realize we want to sell instead. Anyone have any advice? Is the amount of capital gains tax worth worrying about for instance? Know any tax person we can contact in NZ for advice? Any other suggestions or comments?

Thanks, TA

Don

Relax - for NZ there's no CGT anyway. The only usual time your capital gains might be assessed as taxable is when you are doing something as a business, eg regularly and fequently buying and selling houses. I'll give you a URL or two to confirm this.

Cheers - Don