The Aussie Expat: The Luckiest Person on Earth

by Steve Douglas

For any Australian looking to spend part of their life working and living overseas, this is the essential guide that needs to be read. This clear and easy to understand book, will give you all the information necessary to make the most of your time abroad and show you how you can gain control of your financial and taxation affairs. Armed with this knowledge, the possibility to enjoy many years of tax free living on return to Australia, and even the prospect of perhaps never paying tax again is within your grasp. No tricks, no scams, just good old fashioned common sense on how to legally make the most of your situation, advice that anyone can benefit from.

105 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Australian born, based in Singapore and often travels to his offices in NYC, London Hong Kong, Dubai, and Australia. Steve is committed to ensuring he achieves the best outcomes for Aussie expatriates in managing their Australian property taxation and finance requirements.

The co-founder and Managing Director of Australasian Taxation Services (1995) and Chairman of SMATS Services Pte Ltd. His area of taxation specialisation includes non-resident property investors, migration and expatriate taxation planning.

A regular presentor on Taxation matters affecting property investors, expatriates and intended migrants, Steve has delivered seminars on behalf of many industry organisations and developers including the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia and Australian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong.

Steve has been featured in articles by the Singapore Business Times, South China Morning Post, Australian Entrepreneur Magazine, Benchmark, Western Australian Property & Investment and Property Link magazine.

Steve began his career with Ernst Young in 1984 and established a private taxation practice in 1988 specialising in small business taxation and management. He is a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia and a Registered Tax Agent.

In 2009, Steve was recognised as one of the leading 50 Australians in Asia by Advance and invited to participate in the Advance Asia 50 Summit and in 2010 was awarded the Singapore Austcham Entrepreneur Award.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a general rule, I'm not really into "helpful" books telling me the "best way" to do things. Especially something I find boring like finance. But I guess that's the power of TV advertising - I was compelled to after continually seeing the author on his TV ads in Hong Kong. Aimed at such a niche market that I fell into it was a "O.K then" type thing. And after having bought it, it took a while to actually get motivated enough to read it.

Well, I'm glad I did! Steve Douglas certainly knows his sh*t! All those little nuances and questionable areas of how to get the best out of our finances as an Aussie expat were explained. Smart, concise, no financy jargon to overwhelm me, no b*llSh*t.
And none of that stupid crap like "if you stopped buying your coffee every day that would add up to blah blah blah". Because I admit I was worried at first, I thought I'd have to stop buying shoes, but turns out I'll probably be buying more. And I love shoes as much I love books so for that reason alone I needed to give this book a review.

It's worth noting that hubby actually ended up meeting with his team and re-worked our finances straight after reading it, and if you knew my man, you'd know he's very smart with money and never does anything on a whim.

This book is a must for any Aussie expats, wherever you are.

[Isambard Growett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 2007 this book gives a basic and effective strategy for how to leverage your time abroad. If you followed the strategy outlined in this book over the last 20 years you would be very well off financially.

I have two problems with the book.

1) In 2010 Australian tax laws underwent a major revision in regard to expats making it harder to claim non-residency and increasing the amount of tax non-residence have to pay on Australian invesments.

2) The second problem I have with the book is that it follows the usual cheerleading of financial planners. It assumes housing prices will always go up. Since the publication of the book housing prices have dropped around the world.

Overall The Aussie Expat was and interesting read and increased my knowledge of investment options.

[Stel La · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book, especially if you read it before leaving Australia.