Property in Australia + cash to invest

[HR Guy]

I know there are lots of ways to go but any suggestions would be appreciated. I have some investment properties in Australia. These are low priced ranging between $250 - 300K in value. They are all on a variable revolving mortgage at about 8.7%. My accountant told me I should keep the $ amount as high as possible in order to get higher interest charges turning into higher tax credits when I do my tax (effective high negative gearing). As you know, in most cases we are taught to pay down mortgages to lower the interest paid out. Any idea's on this?
The above leads to my next question, i have approx $100k that i have been holding in my Singapore savings account for sometime. Not knowing what to do with it, it really is getting almost nothing. Do i send back to Aust (and lose 30%) into mortgage? Send back to Aust and put in term deposit (higher rate than SGP) or other options?

Any advice is appreciated.

[taxc]

1) negative gearing will only help you if you have other taxable australian income - if your other income is not taxed in Australia, then you are losing out. (unless one day u return to a job in Australia and can utilise the losses you make on your rental property).

2) in terms of your 100k savings...you can put them in AUD deposit with one of the international banks (say stanchart) and obtain a 7.5% interest (and you will pay no tax on it). If you send a deposit to Australia you will be subject to 10% WHT.

if u have any further questions pose them here and Ill ty to reply

[neg gear accrue]

I was under the impression you can accrue each years neg gear losses and when you return to oz you can claim them in one hit against oz tax earned

[cmdsea]

Quite aside from the tax implications first question is why on earth you are paying interest at 8.75% when (assuming you are currently resident in Singapore)you could be paying 2.5%..

[Because]

you'd be gambling on the exchange rate? It wasn't that long ago the sing dollar was worth more than the aus dollar. Last time I checked (a long time ago) it was about 1.30.

If there's some variable/switchable currency mortgage available locally I'd be interested to know.

[HR Guy]

These are all great replies. To Because above, exactly that reason i stayed with the Aust mortgage.
TAXC - Thanks alot for your advice. I am banking with Citi so assume I can go online to put into an Aust term deposit?

[NumberCruncher]

HR Guy, have you done the numbers to work out how much of a risk an exchange rate fluctuation would be (having regard for the fact that the interest rate differential is something like 6%)?

ie how much would the AUD have to depreciate against the SGD for you to be losing?