What records should I keep for 30 June 2027?

Why these records may need to last for years

New CGT rules apply from 1 July 2027 to Australian resident individuals and many trusts. If you hold a business, shares, units or a share of a partnership through 30 June 2027, you are generally treated as selling it just before 1 July 2027 and buying it back on 1 July 2027. No tax is payable because of that deemed sale. The gain up to that point waits until you actually sell, or until another CGT event happens.

That later sale might be five, ten or twenty years away. Only then, with the tax return for that year, is the choice made between the market value just before 1 July 2027 and an apportioning method, once one is made. So the records behind the 30 June 2027 figure may need to be found and read long after the date itself.

The usual CGT record-keeping rules point the same way. They ask you to keep records relevant to working out a capital gain or loss, and to keep them until five years after it becomes certain that no further CGT event can make them relevant. Your tax adviser can confirm how that applies to you.

Companies are treated differently. If your business sits in a company, the records that matter for 30 June 2027 are usually about the shares that you, your family or your trust hold.

The three sets of records to keep

Who owned what at 30 June 2027

• Share registers, share certificates and any shareholders agreement
• The trust deed and any variations, plus the unit register for a unit trust
• The partnership agreement, showing each partner's share
• The date and price at which each owner acquired their interest, and any later issues, transfers or buy-backs

What each interest cost, before and after 1 July 2027

• What was paid for each interest, and the costs of buying it
• Any capital put in later, with the date and amount
• From 1 July 2027, dated records of any further amounts that add to the cost base, because the new indexation of the cost base depends on when each amount was spent

These records matter whichever way the 30 June 2027 figure is worked out, including under an apportioning method. That method was still a draft in October 2026.

How the business stood around 30 June 2027

• Financial statements and tax returns for the year to 30 June 2027 and the years before it
• Management accounts, the asset register, and lists of debtors and creditors at 30 June 2027
• Key contracts, leases, licences, and major customer and supplier lists
• Budgets, forecasts and business plans that existed at the time
• A short note of anything unusual that year, such as losing a major customer or a large one-off job

Keep what genuinely existed at the time. Documents put together years later, from memory, are much harder to rely on.

How to keep them so they still work later

• Make one dated folder for 30 June 2027 and save copies into it once your accounts for that year are final.
• Use formats that will still open in years to come, such as PDF, and keep a second copy somewhere safe.
• Export reports from cloud accounting software and online platforms. Logins, subscriptions and dashboards change.
• If you get a valuation, keep the full report, the engagement letter and your signed representation letter in the same folder.
• Tell your accountant, and whoever may handle your affairs later, where the folder is.

A valuation as at 30 June 2027 is prepared after that date, once your records to 30 June 2027 are available. You can book your place now. If you engage Independent Business Valuation, documents come to us only through the secure upload link on your matter, never by email. Independent Business Valuation values the business or interest; your tax adviser decides how the figure is used.