Reference no: EM132946476

Question - On 1 July 2005 Neil Chen purchased a block of land (1004m2) with a 3 bed-room house on it for $700,000. The house was rented out immediately since 1 July 2005 till June 2017. As the relevant information was not available to him, Neil did not claim deductions for capital works under ITAA97 Div 43 for the income years in which the property was used to produce assessable income. Neil also did not obtain a building cost estimate from a quantity surveyor as he did not want to incur the expense. During July 2017, Neil decided to demolish the existing house and the vacant land was subdivided into two equal-sized blocks on 1 November 2017. Construction of two new dwellings was completed on 1 October 2018 at a total cost of $1,000,000 ($500,000 for each house). Neil used both dwellings as investment properties and each of them was rented out on 1 October 2018. Neil claimed deductions for capital works under ITAA97 Div 43 for the income years for both dwellings. Due to Covid19, financial difficulties caused him to sell one of the dwellings. On 30 May 2020 he entered into a contract for sale and the tenants were moved out on 30 June 2020. The sale price was $950,000 with settlement on 31 July 2020. Selling costs, i.e., agent fees amounted to $10,000.

Required -

Part 1) What are the CGT consequences of the subdivision, demolition and construction of two dwellings? Does the market value substitution rule apply to the demolition? You must include relevant section numbers and/or cases in your explanation.

Part 2) Calculate the net capital gain(s) and identify in which year it should be included. Assume Neil had $21,500 capital losses from 30 June 2018 ($20,000 loss from sale of BHP Shares and $1,500 loss from sale of Stamps).