Property Accountants

In 2024, GRA formed a not-for-profit property advocacy group, Subdivision Advocacy NZ (SANZ), with Kirsty Merriman (developer) and Simon Oconner (town planner). We formed this in reaction to some astonishingly concerning behaviours from Auckland Council, Vector, Veolia and Watercare. The most well-known include the surprise red-zoning of land due to no water capacity and the high proposed development contribution ... Continue reading 

On 12 May I hosted a Frank Discusson about the Property Market webinar with Kris Pedersen (founder of KPM Mortgages), and Than Sundar (experienced property trader and developer). Over the session, we covered interest rates, bank lending, risk management, and where the market is actually moving.Below are the key takeaways. You can watch the full recording here, or at ... Continue reading 

Imagine this: A few years ago, after careful saving and financial planning, you managed to buy an investment property. Your goal from the outset is to hold the property long term. You do some work to add value, and intend keeping it for many years to come to fund your retirement. To your surprise, one day you get a notification ... Continue reading 

AI is taking the world by storm, whether we like it or not. If you are a businessowner, it is arguably prudent to look at embracing it, rather than ignoring it or writing it off as something that doesn’t affect you. Businesses that work out how they can use AI to their advantage are likely to end up with a ... Continue reading 

For many of our clients, the most confusing and most-often discussed type of tax is provisional tax. (For background on the different types of tax that we have to deal with on a regular basis, have a look at our March 2022 blog.)What is provisional tax?Provisional tax is the prepayment of income tax in instalments during the year. It can ... Continue reading 

At GRA we have seen an increasing number of clients come to us after being advised to wind up their trust, or after being discouraged from setting one up at all, having been told that trusts don’t really provide any significant advantages.The reasoning is often straightforward: trusts generally don't provide the tax advantages they once did, and the ongoing ... Continue reading 

A Guide to the Revenue Account Method (RAM)If you're a new migrant to New Zealand, a Kiwi returning home after a long time away, or someone who pays tax in two countries, you've likely encountered New Zealand's complex Foreign Investment Fund (FIF) rules. These rules are designed to tax New Zealand residents on their offshore equity / share investments ... Continue reading 

So you have set up a trust and you are a trustee, and you wonder, “what are my obligations as a trustee?” To answer that question we turn to the Trusts Act. Under this Act there are two classes of trustee duties, being mandatory and default. The mandatory duties are what they sound like. They are irrefutable obligations that trustees ... Continue reading 

The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) surprised at their recent Official Cash Rate review on the 29th of November with their adoption of a relatively hawkish tone and the suggestion that we may not have seen the end to cash rate increases. They increased their own projection for the OCR for the seventh time over the last two years, although I suspect ... Continue reading 

When most people think of insurance, they think about the cost. I guess it's because you see the premium evaporating from your bank account every month. More critically, in these present times, it's tough – what I call the "everything crisis" (the cost of living, healthcare, education, housing – you name it, it's a crisis). It sounds scary, right? ... Continue reading