Clients making wrongful assumptions on depreciation

Managing director of BMT Tax Depreciation Quantity Surveyors Bradley Beer says clients are often unaware or dismiss the need to involve a quantity surveyor in their tax returns, claiming their accountant is sufficient to do all the work.

“People buy a property, then they go, ‘My accountant looks after all the tax’, which is not exactly incorrect, except that there [are] other components to that, one of those being the quantity surveyor,” Mr Beer said.

“The rest of the tax people think, ‘I don’t need you because I’ve got a good accountant’.”

Mr Beer said clients do not realise the need for accountants and quantity surveyors to work as a team as the ATO only accepts property depreciation figures from the surveyor.

“From a compliance point of view and the construction costing component, the tax office wants to see [us]. They’ll accept our numbers not the accountant’s numbers,” he said.

“Such a large portion of people that buy a depreciation schedule do buy later on and they’re ringing me up going, ‘My accountant said I needed one of your things – a quantity surveyors report. What is that?’ You’ve already bought a property and you’re asking that question you should already know.”

Mr Beer said clients should be better educated on the various people, other than accountants, they need to manage their financial affairs.

“The simple [client question] is, ‘But I’ve got a good accountant, what do you do?’ And the simple answer is, ‘We’re a specialist in making sure you get the most deduction out of your property for depreciation only, and [the accountant] uses our number in the tax return and gets you more reductions and makes sure it stands out.”