I’m in my 30s and Dad is gifting me $50,000. What should I do with it?

I’m in my late 30s with two young children. My partner and I earn good incomes, and we owe around $300,000 on our home. My father has a terminal illness and wants to gift me around $50,000 as an early inheritance. What is the best use of this money? My instinct is to keep it in the mortgage offset account as we’re planning a renovation in the next few years. But am I being too conservative?

Your instinct seems pretty sensible to me given the planned renovations. Clearly super is out given the loss of access until age 60 at least.

You could invest it, but a two-year time frame is not long enough for a share or property investment, and more conservative investments are unlikely to earn a superior after-tax return than your mortgage rate. Parking these monies in your offset will produce a return equivalent to your mortgage rate, with no tax to pay.

I am 65, still working and intending to continue to work for another two years. I recently downsized, but in doing so, needed to take a loan of $1.1 million while my property sold. I made the downsizer maximum contribution.

I still have the loan facility, but it is fully offset. I am well-off with around $1.5 million in superannuation, $500,000 in shares and an investment unit which I owe $160,000. Do you think I should maintain the loan and the matching offset account, or use the offset money in better ways to fund growth?

The sweet spot superannuation-wise is to fully utilise your Transfer Balance Cap if possible. This is the maximum amount that can be transferred into a tax-free pension. From July this year that amount is $2.1 million.

You have two more years of work, so your super balance will likely grow between now and then, but there still looks to be some headroom within the cap.

You could therefore consider making some non-concessional super contributions using the money in the offset, with an intention to then clear the loan via share sales or a sale of the unit after you have retired.

The current understanding is that the proposed changes to CGT and the minimum 30 per cent tax applicable will only apply to the portion of the gain after July 1, 2027, so delaying the sell down of these assets should still make sense.

If we sell our properties and/or shares within our SMSF, will we become liable for CGT, and if so, how will this be calculated? My wife and I have an SMSF which has owned investment properties and shares for many years. Both properties and shares are showing substantial capital gains. We are both in retirement phase.

Being in the pension phase, you are in a zero-tax environment, provided you were within the transfer balance cap limits when you commenced your pensions.

The proposed CGT changes have no impact on super funds, so I would not expect that you would have any tax to pay when you sell down these assets. However, you should confirm this with the fund’s accountant.

Before I sign off for this week, a fortnight ago there was a question from a family who were doing it tough. Following the publication of that piece I had several readers reach out to me asking if they could help that family out. I have passed on those offers. I just wanted to recognise the generosity among the readership here, and thank you very much for your kindness.

Paul Benson is a Certified Financial Planner at Guidance Financial Services. He hosts the Financial Autonomy podcast. Questions to: paul@financialautonomy.com.au

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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