News Round Up

IRD pings Qld property investors, Tower looking for lost shareholders, AMP Office Trust to build skyscraper, NZSE goes wireless, ASX warns against share trading software.

Sunday, March 26th 2000, 12:00AM

IRD sends letters to Qld property investors
Hundreds of New Zealand investors who borrowed to invest in Queensland Gold Coast property may be caught in a tax trap.

The Inland Revenue Department has sent letters to about 1000 investors telling them that they may owe the IRD resident withholding tax on interest paid to Australian banks. The letters went to people who borrowed to invest in Australian property, mostly on the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast properties have been actively promoted in New Zealand and they have been popular with middle-income, older New Zealanders.

Generally, New Zealanders who borrow overseas must pay non-resident withholding tax from the interest they pay. This is part of international tax conventions that countries where business occurs are entitled to tax on it.

Tower looking for missing shareholders

Tower Corporation still has shares worth $70 million unclaimed by policyholders in New Zealand and Australia since it converted to a listed company six months ago.

When Tower listed it had 28.64 million unclaimed shares that were put into the Tower Safe Trust. Since listing Tower has transferred 11 per cent of those shares to policyholders and is in the process of transferring another 9 per cent.

The company says the unclaimed share represent about 165,000 members. Its says the owners of the fully paid shares were mainly people who had taken out mortgage insurance policies several years ago which included a life insurance element and had needed just one up-front payment.

AMP Office Trust to build
AMP Office Trust will build a 32-level tower on the site of the Downtown Airline Terminal and Downtown Convention Centre on the corner of Albert and Quay Sts in Auckland.

This is the biggest development announced for the city since work started on the 40-level, $200 million Royal & SunAlliance Centre in Shortland Street.

The AMP skyscraper, to be called Waterfront Towers, will include carparks, a plaza and 26 levels of offices.

Demolition work will soon begin on the airline terminal and convention centre.

Share trading goes wireless
The New Zealand Stock Exchange has launched a system that allows people to trade shares directly from their mobile phone on the Internet.

Investors wishing to use the system will need to ask their broker to register them as a user.

The broker would set limits for the transactions they could undertake and then the client could trade without further involvement of the broker, NZSE managing director Bill Foster says.

The wireless system was developed jointly by listed Australian share registry company Computershare, Hewlett-Packard, Tantau Software, and the NZSE.

ASX warns against share trading software
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has told consumers to be wary of ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes. The schemes the watchdog was talking about was the computer share trading software which providing trading recommendations without any explanation of how the advice is generated. ASIC director of consumer protection, Peter Kell said consumers should ask themselves if this kind of software is really necessary since some of these systems sell for thousands of dollars and do not necessarily deliver value for money. "Active trading is a risky and time-consuming business, and will not suit the investment needs of most consumers," Kell says.

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