02 Oct Hot Property / How much ‘thinking’ can we do?
It’s hardly a secret, many areas of New Zealand have seen massive increases in prices for real estate over the last 5 years or so. It’s also no secret that IRD have noticed too. While we will have to wait for Winston to make both sides of the political divide do a dance to see who will form the next government, at least in the short term, it looks unlikely that New Zealand will go down the path of a comprehensive capital gains tax. However, there is still a number of existing provisions within the tax legislation that mean property transactions can end up attracting tax.
If you are considering purchasing or selling a property, contact us. We can talk through any tax implications, and if your purchasing for an investment, we can discuss how to make sure this investment works for you.
How much ‘thinking’ can we do?
How much time each day do you spend thinking? How much of that thinking time is valuable, and how much of it is wasted? Our mental horsepower is a limited resource, so it’s a good idea to use this resource on the truly valuable tasks, be they in your ‘work’ or ‘personal’ life.
Research suggests that an adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day. Check out the research here.
So, what can you do to make sure you are making the most of your thinking?
- Avoid multi-tasking like the plague: Multi-tasking doesn’t really exist, we can only concentrate fully on one task at a time, so instead we tend to quickly switch between multiple tasks. The problem with this is that it is cognitively expensive, we tend to make far more errors when having more than one task on the go and each time we switch, it takes a small amount of time. These small amounts of time add up and can cause a 40% loss in your productivity!
- Put small decisions on autopilot: how often have you stared aimlessly at the fridge deciding what to eat for lunch, or at the wardrobe wondering what to wear for the day? For many people, making these little decisions is even harder while working – what task should I focus on first? Remove as many of the little decisions as you can i.e. choose your clothing for a week. For your work, as much as possible, have a plan of your day/week and stick to it.
- No interruption time: How much of your day is spent responding to interruptions? Chances are; a lot! US research suggests that interruptions consume 40 – 60% of our day (for small business owners, that figure is possibly higher!) This is estimated to cost the US economy $588 Billion. Wow. So, what can you do about this? Schedule some time when you can’t be interrupted. Have blocks of time when you turn off your phone and email and focus on the most valuable tasks.
Give your brain a break, chances are it already does too much!
And another great thing about NZ…
Our news is dominated by news about the post-election coalition discussions. Would we swap any of the Aussie, US or UK leaders for ours…I don’t think so, do you?
We might not all agree on ideology, but haven’t we got some good people in charge of NZ politics now?
And that’s lucky, as there are some serious things to fix. We may be a bit worried on the one hand if Jacinda does it her way, but on the other hand, Bill’s team have spent so much time sitting on their hands will they really fix it? Housing, infrastructure, health, you can add to the list.
Let’s talk taxes. There is a big hole worldwide in taxing multinationals. Even when they get big tax breaks, like in Ireland, they cheat according to the EU. We don’t think NZ IRD will by itself be able to effectively crack down. We need to join a worldwide effort to stop this.
For the second time this newsletter, capital gains tax. Apparently, this is big and scary. Our view: not so much. We already have such a tax on some items, (sale of a house within two years) but not on others (say sale of a business, like Sam Morgan’s Trademe). That doesn’t make sense. As a community, we need to sort this out and not be pushed around by cheap political shots during elections.
Reward has got so out of sync with Risk, and the ethos of Public Service seems to be lost. Instinctively it feels wrong when a CEO is paid hundreds of times more than front line staff, like the pay deal for Fonterra’s boss. It feels wrong to just about everyone that our social welfare system is not focused on hand up vs handout. But it also feels wrong that MSD and ACC and EQC comes across as if they do not respect the people they are there to serve. Our 2 cents worth: lots to fix.
