CGT calculator (property flips)

Is CGT or income tax payable on a flip?

This is the question that trips up most first-time flippers, because the answer is often not CGT at all. It depends on intent. If the ATO views your flip as a profit-making undertaking — you bought specifically to renovate and resell for a gain — the profit is treated as ordinary income on revenue account, taxed at your marginal rate, and the 50% CGT discount doesn't apply no matter how long you held it. That's the default position for a genuine flip. CGT only enters the picture where the property was genuinely bought and held to live in or to earn rent, and you happen to sell it later at a gain. The label you put on the deal doesn't decide it; the facts do. For the full revenue-vs-capital line and how the ATO reads intent, read our guide to property flipping tax in Australia. The short version: run the numbers assuming your profit is fully taxable income, and treat any CGT discount as a bonus you have to earn, not the base case.

The 50% individual discount (and why most flips miss it)

Where CGT does apply, an asset held by an individual or trust for more than 12 months qualifies for a 50% discount on the taxable gain — companies get no discount. For a long-held investment that's significant: it halves the amount added to your taxable income. But two things bite flippers here. First, a fast cosmetic flip is usually sold well inside 12 months, so even on capital account there'd be no discount. Second, and more importantly, if the deal is a profit-making undertaking the discount is off the table regardless of the hold period — the 12-month clock is irrelevant when the gain is income, not a capital gain. Holding a flip past a birthday hoping to halve the tax is one of the more expensive myths in this game.

How the tax is actually worked out

The gain isn't your resale price minus your purchase price. It's the sale proceeds minus your cost base — and the cost base is bigger than people assume. It includes the purchase price, the stamp duty you paid on the way in, legal and conveyancing on both ends, buyer's and selling agent fees, and the cost of capital improvements — the renovation itself. Some ownership costs like rates and interest can form part of the cost base on capital account where they haven't already been claimed as a deduction. Every legitimate dollar in the cost base is a dollar of gain you don't pay tax on, which is why the record-keeping matters as much as the reno. Whatever gain survives (after the 50% discount, if you genuinely qualify) is added to your other income for the year and taxed at your marginal rate, plus the Medicare levy.

CGT, GST and income tax are three separate questions

A flip can attract more than one of them, and they don't cancel each other out. Income tax (or CGT) applies to your profit. If your renovation is substantial enough to count as new residential premises, the sale can also be a taxable supply for GST, which is a tax on the sale price — potentially the margin scheme — not on the profit. Answer all three before you buy, not after you've sold, because together they can turn a headline "profit" into a thin one. Model the whole after-tax result alongside your holding costs and flip ROI so the tax line is in the deal from day one — or see it all pulled together on a real deal in our sample full analysis.

Individual, trust or company — the structure changes the answer

Who owns the property matters as much as how long you hold it. Held in your own name, a genuine flip profit is added to your personal income and taxed at your marginal rate; a capital gain (where one genuinely applies) can access the 50% discount. Trusts can also access the discount and then stream the result to beneficiaries. A company gets no CGT discount at all and pays the flat company rate on the profit, which for a repeat flipper on a high marginal rate can actually be the cheaper structure — but it comes with its own setup, compliance and access-to-cash trade-offs. There's no one right answer, and the wrong structure is expensive to unwind after you've bought. Sort it with your accountant before the first purchase, not at tax time.

What this calculator does

It estimates marginal tax on the discounted gain using 2025-26 ATO resident rates, so you can sanity-check the tax bite before you commit. It doesn't include the Medicare levy, low-income offsets, super contributions, the GST margin scheme, or trust / company structures, and it assumes the CGT rules apply — which, as above, is often the wrong assumption for a genuine flip. Treat it as a directional figure. For the exchange-day decision and your specific structure, confirm the position with your accountant.

This is general information only, not tax advice. Tax treatment of property flips depends on your circumstances and current ATO rules, which change. Confirm your position with a registered tax agent before you buy or sell.