Aggregator
eChoice has announced a new partnership with a leading tax depreciation firm, offering member brokers access to advice about tax changes announced in last week’s Federal Budget.
While the government has proposed changes to rules around depreciation for property investors, eChoice teamed up with national tax depreciation company BMT.
Blake Buchanan, general manager of aggregation at eChoice, said that BMT was a respected information source that brokers could depend on for their investor clients.
“Now that changes to depreciation rules have become reality as part of the Federal Treasurer’s Budget delivery, the intention is for our brokers to be able to connect their investor clients with the depreciation specialist at the point of sale,” he said.
“This offers a significant value-add for their businesses to already have that critical service on-boarded well before July.”
After working with BMT for several years, Buchanan said he was a big fan of their services for their consumer outcomes.
“We engaged them with the intention of forming a partnership just prior to Christmas. The crux of those conversations were around what was happening in the press and government and public concern around changes in investment properties, negative gearing, depreciation, etc,” he told
Australian Broker.
A pre-emptive plan was formed at the time so brokers would be well advised about depreciation and implications for investors.
While this was a new prospect for BMT who had never distributed their services in this manner, Buchanan said the partnership made absolute sense.
“The broker is the one who is engaging the client at point of sale understanding their financial needs and what those financial needs are for. For investment properties, the broker is at the very front of the transaction and is able to empower the client with precise information about deductibility against investment properties.”
eChoice was there to prepare today’s brokers for tomorrow’s activities, he said.
“We always try and get in front of the game. We read this play really well that about the proposed changes. As such, we engaged those conversations.”
The partnership will now engage brokers at the press of a button, Buchanan said, with eChoice already providing all information and collateral around brokers’ contact points to BMT.
“More importantly, the broker’s system will understand when it’s an investment property. When it’s an investment property, the system realises that intuitively and allows the broker to forward on the client details to BMT.”
The tax specialists will then engage the client within an hour to discuss how a depreciation report can be of benefit.
Bradley Beer, chief executive officer of BMT said that as brokers continue to write more investment loans, there was a real need for concise, current advice about the rules for depreciation.
“This partnership with eChoice will really complement the existing service their brokers provide to the investor market, by delivering a necessary element of legal clarity around changes and how they will affect each individual borrower,” he said.
The partnership between eChoice and BMT will be effective immediately for the aggregator’s broker network.
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