If we were to sell half our shares and keep the rest of the shares till retirement, do we have to pay any tax or capital gains now?

Q.

My wife and I are 49 and 48 years old. We have a fully paid investment property which the bank has given us an equity loan of $145,000. 1) We want to minimise tax and grow our investments. What should we do? Should we buy a studio apartmment for $145,000 or invest the lot in shares? At this stage, we prefer property as shares seem to be very risky as in the case of ABC Learning. It seems that property will not drop in value to such an extent. 2) If we invest the lot in shares and the shares were to increase in value to $290,000 and we were to sell half the shares and keep the rest of the shares till retirement, do we have to pay any tax or capital gains now? That is, we do not realise our gains immediately. Can you help us by providing some advice on what to do with the $145,000? By the way, we both work full time and rent.

Only you can decide whether you prefer property or shares but over the long term shares have substantially out performed property even when the normal fluctuations in the market are taken into account. You can protect yourself against having too many eggs in the one basket by investing in an index fund or a quality Australian share trust where your money is spread over a wide range of companies.