In whose name does your next investment property go?
The 2026 tax changes mean choosing whose name goes on an investment property now requires investors to consider their entire portfolio, the type of property and its real cash-flow cost.
Choosing an ownership structure is becoming a more complex decision as negative gearing rules change. (Image source: Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock.com)
“Whose name do we put the next one in?”
I get asked that more than almost anything else, and for years the answer started in the same place: income. If one spouse earned a lot more than the other and the property was going to be negatively geared, you leaned towards the higher earner. Simple enough.
It was never the whole picture. Ownership also decides who pays tax on the rent, who wears the capital gains bill down the track, how land tax stac…
