Benniee
31st July 2007, 12:51 PM
Hello All,
I've stumbled into this area of the forums for the first time and I'm impressed with the posts in here.
As a little background I'm on the hunt for a suitable property in the Hunter Valley (preferrable lower hunter) to get some timber plantation(s) going. I have been looking for some time and nothing suitable has come up yet, so I continue to wait.
I have tried and tried to get cetain info out of various govt. departments relating to private forestly and usually get bounced around between people until I give up in frustration (I'm sure this is a policy of most departments :) )
So I'll ask a couple of my questions in here and see if anyone has experienced something similar.
1. Clearing of exisitng areas/scrub.
A lot of the properties I've looked at so far are pretty rough to say the least. This is to be expected as I'm not after prime grazing land. But what I have trouble finding out is what I have to go through to clear out any areas of scrub in order to set up sites to plant timber. Is this kind of clearing viewed differently from clearing to pasture?
2. Taxation issues.
If you set up a plantation with a view to selling the timber there are obviously taxation issues to be considered. What deductions can be made year-by-year as the trees are growing? I have seen a couple of worksheets from the ATO but they all seem to work around the sale of the timber. If you're starting a plantation then this will be many years away.
Great area of the site guys - I look forward to reading posts in here often.
Ben
I've stumbled into this area of the forums for the first time and I'm impressed with the posts in here.
As a little background I'm on the hunt for a suitable property in the Hunter Valley (preferrable lower hunter) to get some timber plantation(s) going. I have been looking for some time and nothing suitable has come up yet, so I continue to wait.
I have tried and tried to get cetain info out of various govt. departments relating to private forestly and usually get bounced around between people until I give up in frustration (I'm sure this is a policy of most departments :) )
So I'll ask a couple of my questions in here and see if anyone has experienced something similar.
1. Clearing of exisitng areas/scrub.
A lot of the properties I've looked at so far are pretty rough to say the least. This is to be expected as I'm not after prime grazing land. But what I have trouble finding out is what I have to go through to clear out any areas of scrub in order to set up sites to plant timber. Is this kind of clearing viewed differently from clearing to pasture?
2. Taxation issues.
If you set up a plantation with a view to selling the timber there are obviously taxation issues to be considered. What deductions can be made year-by-year as the trees are growing? I have seen a couple of worksheets from the ATO but they all seem to work around the sale of the timber. If you're starting a plantation then this will be many years away.
Great area of the site guys - I look forward to reading posts in here often.
Ben