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Alan Kohler SMH

Who is the Shoebox service designed for?
What does it do?
Why should I use it?
How does it work?
How do I start?
What about Optimised Capital Gains Tax Processing?
Tell me about Portfolio & Stock Performance Reporting
Where to from here?

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Who is the Shoebox service designed for?

The Shoebox service can be used for all types of portfolio structures;

* Individual
* Joint/partnership
* Superannuation
* Company
* Trust

What does it do?
Until now, tracking and reporting on a personal portfolio of investments has been accomplished in one of three ways.

1. By not maintaining records, but storing dockets in a “shoebox” for delivery to an accountant at tax time. This is a very expensive way to keep affairs in order, and does not provide the continuous tax and performance information needed for rational investment decision making.

2. By keeping records on paper or in spreadsheets. This requires a time commitment, provides insufficient information on the performance and tax status of investments and carries a risk of errors, such as not picking up a dividend that has gone astray or been miscalculated, or miscalculating CGT due on sale of an investment.

3. By using the “wrap accounts” available to financial advisers, and typically paying fees that are related to the amounts invested, and which are frequently much higher than the services provided would warrant.

Financial Shoebox provides a professional portfolio service that incorporates “next generation” technology (provided by Premium Limited: ASX PPS). It delivers highly sophisticated, automated investment administration and reporting functionality, all delivered online for a low, flat monthly fee.

Why should I use it?

The Shoebox is designed with optimised CGT processing at its core – a unique feature in the market that makes it simple to maximise your after tax return.

In addition to improving after tax performance, Shoebox delivers the following benefits:

• Proactive CGT Management – enabling you to manage your CGT affairs throughout the year. Tax planning can be actioned prior to June 30th with ease. In many cases, realised gains may be offset much earlier in the financial year to better manage the risk of unfavourable market movements.

• Deal with multiple brokers – but still have one managed portfolio service. Your nominated brokers can send us copies of contract notes and we will ensure that your portfolios are constantly up to date – even when you’re away or on holidays.

• Keep on top of your investments by accurately monitoring portfolio and stock performance. Compare the performance of managed funds, listed equities and direct investments in a mathematically correct manner.

• Reduce administration. Significantly reduce administrative work-load, particularly through forensic reconstruction of stock holdings using Shoebox’s corporate action database.

• Make better investment decisions. Portfolio valuations and tax positions are updated every day, and so Shoebox provides current information at your finger tips to improve decision making.

• Registered ownership. Unlike some other administration service providers, the ownership of investments remains entirely with you.

How does it work?

Shoebox transcends traditional wrap and master trust platforms with superior tax and investment reporting features and management functionality. The flexible real time access allows you to log-on to your portfolio through our website and to view portfolio details at any time for all types of portfolio structures;

* Individual
* Joint/partnership
* Superannuation
* Company
* Trust

Transactions for listed securities can be updated direct from your executing broker with no need for any action from you. Corporate actions, such as dividend payments and dividend reinvestment, are also added automatically.

All listed securities are re-valued daily.

Links to cash facilities automatically update the cash book function in your Shoebox to reconcile trading activity.

Data covering listed shares, derivatives and over 8,500 managed funds is updated automatically, including distributions, revaluations, share splits and so on. Any investments not on the list can be included as service assets.

Personal assets (property and collectibles) and service assets (private equity investments, direct property, hedge funds or any unlisted investment for which we do not have a data feed) can also be added and reported on. Transaction details for personal and service assets cannot be automated, and so must be advised to us.

Your Shoebox delivers a unique blend of flat fee service, full corporate action and CGT processing, across ALL asset classes, with up to date reporting on-line, all the time.

How do I start?

To start, we will build a full history of the portfolio from data you provide and match it against the portfolio’s current holdings. We have advanced tools to help reconstruct portfolios and capital gains tax details, as long as we are provided with the dates of acquisitions and disposals, and the amounts involved. This information is usually available from brokers.

Once your portfolio has been reconstructed, Shoebox keeps the portfolio up to date by rolling forward every day. During this processing, new transactions and corporate actions are automatically applied to each portfolio.

If authority is given to the executing stock broker to send us copies of contract notes, portfolios will be kept constantly up to date with no data entry or manual record keeping needed by you.

As you would expect from a service that has been designed around recording and managing capital gains tax consequences, Shoebox takes tax free, tax deferred and distributed CGT income components into account when calculating CGT positions.

What about Optimised Capital Gains Tax Processing?

To improve the after tax performance of your portfolio, Shoebox uses a three phase CGT optimisation process:

1. Method selection
When disposing of a parcel acquired prior to 21st September 1999, there is a choice as to whether to use the new discount method or the old indexation method for calculating any gain. Shoebox will automatically choose the most advantageous method.

2. Parcel Selection
Shoebox provides a number of methods by which purchase lots can be allocated against sell transactions using specific parcel allocation:
Minimise Gain – choose parcels to delay gains
Maximise Gain – choose parcels to accelerate gains
Manual – manually pick parcels to sell
First In First Out – selects oldest parcels first
Except for Manual Selection, pre 1985 stock parcels are selected last so as to preserve any pre-CGT assets for you.

3. Loss optimisation
Whilst it would be nice to assume that we never make losses, it is highly probable that each investor will have made trading losses during the year or have unrealised losses hiding within their portfolio that can be used to offset gains.

Shoebox provides two techniques to ensure the most value for each dollar of loss:
a. Sequential Loss offsetting - Where both discounted and non-discounted gains (e.g. less than 1 year gains) have been made, Shoebox will offset losses against gains so that non-discounted gains are offset first. This ensures that you get the most value for each dollar of loss.
b. Method selection switching - When offsetting a loss against a discounted gain, and providing that a choice exists between the allowable methods of calculating taxable gain, Shoebox will use the most advantageous method for each individual transaction. This gives best “bang for the buck” when realising losses.

The above optimisation process is performed every evening during the position roll forward processing and will adjust for any changes in holdings.

Tell me about Portfolio & Stock Performance Reporting
Shoebox’s performance reporting component allows you to monitor the performance of individual investments as well as the performance of the total portfolio.

Shoebox’s performance calculations take into account:
- Realised gains/losses
- Unrealised gains/losses
- Income/distributions during the period
- Franking Credits

This will enable you to correctly compare the performance of all assets in your portfolio ranging from listed equities, managed funds, fixed interest and direct investments (e.g. investment property).

Using our online performance screens, you can rapidly sequence investments in absolute gain, nominal gain or performance percentage sequence.

Where to from here?
Call us today on 1300 500 333 to access a trial service, to discuss your needs or to arrange a demonstration.

Feedback
We welcome any questions or comments you may have about the site or service, please click here to send your feedback.




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