Brett Evans

That means that you can move out of your principal place of residence for up to six years, rent it out, sell it in that period of time, and you won't pay capital gains tax.

Back in 2020, we saw a change with the Morrison government.

They removed the main resident exemption for non-residents, which means that if you are a non-resident for tax purposes and you sign a contract to sell your former principal place of residence in Australia,

then you'll pay capital gains tax back to the day to purchase.

There's a couple of exclusions called life events that not many people qualify for.

So generally the idea is, is before you move, you need to work out whether you intend to sell that property while you're away.

Look, I think there's the tax view and then there's the personal view.

To me, you haven't really put down your roots until two years in.

That's when you're sort of settled in.

You know where to buy your Vegemite.

You know how to navigate the system and you've got the bandwidth to enjoy where you live.

Anything before that, it's crazy.

You're trying to understand new systems and everything.

You also have the added complication too that in the ATO's eyes that if you do leave and come back

then they view that as temporary so therefore you haven't severed ties with australia and therefore depending on what country you go to you might be double taxed so that's a consideration as well too so to me we've seen a change pre-covered everyone was in and out all the time

COVID changed everything for a lot of people.

And now we're seeing people moving overseas and buying property and putting down roots.

And that timeframe, instead of a two to four year average, now it's sort of sometimes a three to 10 year average for a lot of folks.

Okay.

Look, I think it is.