AusFinance

Anyone banking with Me Bank should be aware of the trick the bank ispulling. I have a home loan with Me bank and every time I call them I have to wait minimum of 1 hour on hold. So I thought let's try calling them early in the morning, mid day and in the evening before they close. All had the same result - around 1 hour hold. Tried on 8 different days and same result. Now its time to discharge my loan from them to some other bank

What are the new stage 3 tax cut brackets?

Here's how the proposed plan looks at a glance:

• Earn up to $18,200 – pay no tax

• Pay a 16 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $18,201-$45,000

• Pay a 30 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $45,001-$135,000

• Pay a 37 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $135,001 — $190,000

• Pay a 45 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned above $190,000

What were they going to be?

Here's what the previous plan looked like at a glance:

• Earn up to $18,200 – pay no tax

• Pay a 19 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $18,201-$45,000

• Pay a 30 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $45,001-$200,000

• Pay a 45 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned above $200,000

Having responded to stronger-than-expected quarterly inflation figures by lifting the cash rate to 4.35 per cent in November, the RBA has used softer-than-expected monthly inflation data as an excuse to sit tight in December.

But RBA governor Michele Bullock noted that those October inflation figures covered mainly goods and few services, which are currently the main area of concern for the central bank, leaving it waiting for additional data.

"The limited information received on the domestic economy since the November meeting has been broadly in line with expectations," Ms Bullock observed in her post-meeting statement.

With no meeting scheduled for January, borrowers should be safe from further rate rises until at least February.

(title changed from "Australians have endured the largest decline in spending power for four decades, so the RBA has decided to give them a break")

I haven't seen much discussion about this, but noticed them when perusing some PDS's. The headliner is that they both have fees of 0.15%, lower than everyone else's equivalent offerings in the Australian market:

Global listed infrastructure:

Global listed property:

* Total estimated fees, as taken from most recent PDS for each product at time of posting. Includes management fees (including indirect costs if broken down separately), plus transaction costs.

VanEck already recently reduced the fees on their two offerings a lot, but now BlackRock is half of that again.

Since it's listed (not unlisted) infra / property there's less diversification benefit, but hey it's being offered for cheap now.

Almost half of Australia’s mortgage holders would be in financial stress if the expected Melbourne Cup interest rate rise goes ahead, paying at least 30% of their income to service their loans.

Households diverting at least 30% of their disposable income to service a mortgage – a standard stress gauge – will account for 48.5% of total borrowers, according to the Australian National University’s Australian tax and welfare system model.

The proportion rose from 26.7% in pre-Covid 2019 to 43.8% at the end of last year, and easily topped the 38.5% share of households in 1993, to be at record levels.

Mr Purcell admits he initially bought his battery as a form of insurance against the volatility inherent in the spot market.

However, his thinking quickly changed when he saw the opportunities on offer, describing one instance in which he was able to fill up his 10-kilowatt-hour battery with electricity costing 1 cent per unit.

"That's the opportunity and the risk on the very low prices," he said.

"It cost me 10 cents to fill the battery during the middle of the day.

"And then at night-time the price went up over $10 a kilowatt hour, so I was able to export that same 10 kilowatts out of that battery for $100."

Surprise! Fuckwit Who Thinks You Don’t Work Hard Enough Got His Start Through an Inheritance

New article from Passive Investing Australia. Always quality content!

Watch out for scams, folks

Do you happen to know banks that meet these criteria?

• Telephone banking (of some fashion) provided
• TOTP for 2FA is a) available and b) its use is not contingent on the use of an app; 2FA seeds are freely exportable by the user via web login

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I had always assumed that considering my share broker has my TFN that it would all be worked out automatically for me, the same as they already can with dividend income. But I go to MyGov to fill out the details and get met with a form asking me to manually enter CGT details:

Above it's got a list of a bunch of transactions, presumably from the large number of shares I sold earlier this year to pay for a downpayment on a house (the first time I've sold shares after a few years of buying).

From the company I buy shares through, I've got an "Interim Tax Summary Report" which has fields very similar to those in this sample PDF I found online:

If that sample was my actual report, would that be sufficient information to submit the three fields shown on MyGov with the following?

• Total current year capital gains: 36,767 (17,505+19,262)
• Net capital gain: 26,222 (17,505+9,631-914)
• Net capital loss carried forward to later income years: 0 (because Net capital gain is > 0)

And the "Wealth+ Management Fees" number (0 in this example, its equivalent not 0 in my real report) would go as a deduction under "Dividend deductions"?

edit: I have just realised that in my real one, (Long gains + short gains - losses - discount gains) is > 0. That makes me even more lost than I was to begin with.

As Vanguard retail funds are now closed to new investors, there is a risk that over time these funds may no longer be economically viable to operate and could result in increased fees or termination of the funds. This proposal gives you the opportunity to participate in a one-time transaction to transition to our larger wholesale funds without triggering a capital gain.

I just completed my tax on my gov and the estimate says I owe nearly a thousand dollars. I'm not earning any more than last year and I got about 800 back last year. Anyone else having this issue?

The online lists of bank savings accounts I've looked at are now mostly out of date.

The guardians for my grandmother recently got control of her CBA bank account (don't worry this isn't a horror story) and discovered it was all in an almost 0% interest account, so they've moved it to a goalsaver (4.65% at time of writing).

I have a CBA account, but moved my savings around a few years back first to Bank Australia (they had good interest for a while) then Credit Union SA (currently at 3.65%). I feel like I might end up with an account with everyone at this rate.

ING seems to offer 5.5% right now but they have a longer list of requirements attached than I expected (I'll have to start using their cards if I join them).

Any thoughts or advice? EDIT: Also are fixed term deposits ever sane? I've always assumed that guessing the direction of interest rates is a gamble.

After my license number was leaked in the Latitude breach I decided to put a credit reporting ban in place to provide extra protection. Having applied for a couple of banking products since then and having had the bans lifted a couple of times I am a bit disturbed by how easy it is.

To lift the ban you just fill out an online form with name, address, birthdate and license number - the same information that someone trying to steal my identity would have. Why isn't there some sort of two factor identification check? It seems like it would be pretty easy for someone else to lift the ban in order to access credit in my name, and even though I would realise quickly that something was wrong when I received the confirmation email that the ban had been lifted it would be difficult to do anything about it.

The wool market has dropped 20 per cent from last year. Brokers say they are dumping low-value wool into landfill. Growers are urged to keep producing wool despite the gloomy outlook.

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The Queensland Government in Australia has introduced new subsidies to help families with the costs of kindergarten (kindy) and childcare expenses. The subsidies aim to make these services more affordable and accessible for families in the state. Under the new scheme, families with a household income of less than $80,000 will receive free kindy for their children. Families with a household income between $80,000 and $100,000 will receive a subsidy of $2,500 per child. Additionally, families earning up to $160,000 will receive a subsidy of $2,000 per child. The government hopes that these measures will ease the financial burden on families and encourage more children to attend kindy and childcare facilities.