The Money Mustache Community
Around the World => Australia Discussion => Topic started by: Australian on July 03, 2018, 08:52:22 PM
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Hi - I am the full time stay at home parent while my husband has been working full time for close to 20 years. We have put our investment shares in my name as I have zero earnings otherwise and it minimises our tax. Now that we are in a better financial position, we have talked about my husband staying home for a few years (kids haven't left home yet) and I would like to do some work (though will only probably earn about half or less of what he does). How do I go about transferring the shares into his name, as he will then have no income, and hence be more effective from a tax perspective? Also he will eventually want to go back to work too (and will earn more than me) so it would then make sense at that point to transfer the shares back into my name.
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You really need to check whether it’s worth it, because you will be paying capital gains tax on the transfer. This may be more than the reduced tax, especially if his tax is going to increase later on when he goes back to work.
Why not start investing everything in joint names, and (if you are in dividend reinvestment plans) stop any dividend reinvestment into your name?
The mechanics of share transfer are easy, you get the off market transfer form from the share registry of the company whose shares you wish to transfer, fill it out and send it to them.