You can claim a lot of things on your investment property. Number 1 is the depreciation, then there's things like insurance, rates, interest, property management fees and maintenance without incurring any CGT. Negative gearing is when your expenses outweigh your rental return/income, so yes, you're correct. You will have to pay a CGT on the property if you sell the asset and it is realised for a sum of which is more than you paid, provided you have NOT legally established that property as your principal place of residence for a certain period of time. So it looks like you'll be exempt from CGT if you did sell it. If you do pay capital gains tax, it will basically be added to your taxable income for that financial year. This is why blokes often purchase an investment in their wife/ partner's name. There are dozens of factors that will attribute to your income tax and investment property and you'll probably have some difficulty in understanding all of it so leave it to your accountant! So in other words, you can freely claim all the of above without copping CGT. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is my understanding