Completely at a loss?

KEY POINTS

• Non-corporates' losses carried forward suffer considerable restrictions on use.
• Excess Schedule A losses are more flexible.
• Schedule A losses cannot be carried back.

Gloom and doom — it seems to be all around particularly in the property sector. This set me thinking about losses and in particular property income losses.

How can you make use of them? Curiously both the computation and use of these losses varies according to whether the business is conducted through a corporate or a non-corporate vehicle.

Indeed even the name is different: companies have the traditional Schedule A while non-corporates have 'income from a property business'. The rules governing each unfortunately seem to owe a little less to common sense than one might have hoped.

Non-corporates

Let's look at non-corporates first. This term includes individuals either acting solely...