The One Question No Tech Professional Has Answered Correctly in 14 Months
- Mo Shouman
- Dec 15, 2025
- 4 min read
By Mo, Founder and Principal Adviser – My Wealth Choice, Sydney
It’s become a running joke in my calendar.
I sit down with a senior engineer, a tech lead, a staff-level specialist… someone earning $300k, $450k, sometimes $600k with RSUs.
We get through the usual warm-up.
“How’s family and work?”
“Yeah, market’s a bit shaky.”
“Lots of meetings today?”
Then I ask few questions to understand the lay of land. Then the question that can instantly tell me everything I need to know:
“So, what’s your tax-minimisation strategy?”
And every time, without fail, I get one of three things:
- Silence.
- “None.”
- Or the classic:
“Haha, that’s why I’m talking to you.”
For 14 straight months, not a single $300k+ tech professional has given me a real answer.
Not one.
But occasionally, I get the “improved” answer.
- “I’ve got two cars on novated leases.”
- “I’ve got two investment properties that are positively geared now.”
And if you want my honest take on it?
These are the answers that worry me most.
Because they sound like strategy while they are not.
They feel clever.
But they’re not.
At $300k+ income, these approaches don’t just fall short they actively work against you.
Let’s break them down, as bluntly as they deserve.
1. Novated Leases: The Most Popular Non-Strategy in Tech
If you’re earning $300k or more and your “tax plan” is two novated leases, let me be straight with you:
You don’t have a tax strategy.
You have a shopping habit with a salary-packaging wrapper.
Here’s what I mean.
Real Example: A Senior Dev on $340k With Two Novated Leases
He proudly tells me he’s “already doing tax optimisation.”
Two novated leases:
A $78k EV and a $92k SUV.
Total deductions? Sure, they look nice on paper.
But once we broke it down we identified 2 main things
1- Very high monthly repayments.
2- These assets will be nothing in 5 years time.
And the big surprise was his answer when I asked: If you don’t have novated lease, do
you need those cars and would have bought them?
He replied:
I wouldn’t have bought either car without the “tax benefit.”
Net position after tax savings?
He was still down $17,800/year.
For what?
To feel like he was “doing something smart with tax.”
A novated lease isn’t a tax strategy.
It’s prepaying lifestyle.
And if you need two to feel like you’ve cracked the ATO code, you’ve doubled the mistake.
2. Investment Properties: The Comfort Blanket That Stops Real Wealth Building
Now, let’s talk about property, the sacred cow of Aussie finance.
I hear this weekly:
“My properties are negatively geared. I’m doing well.”
No.
You’re doing okay.
But “okay” is not a tax strategy, and it’s not a wealth plan.
Here’s the problem:
Properties = Capital accumulation not income strategy
Cash flow might be positive, but tax position is often inefficient
Growth is lumpy and unpredictable
And most importantly:
You have tied up hundreds of thousands of dollars in an asset that has no relationship to your long-term retirement runway
The strategy should be to acquire a high-quality asset that appreciate in value and generate income that does not attract more tax.
Real Example: A Staff Engineer on $420k With Two Positively Geared Properties
He was certain he was “set.”
After all, both properties were bringing in a combined $12k/year in passive income.
But once we ran the numbers inside my Confident Choice System:
His tax bill remained above $120k/year
The properties added risk but barely improved retirement modelling
Debt levels were high relative to his emergency buffer
Concentration risk was off the charts
And his RSUs were completely unprotected with no structure, no plan, no
derisking
The biggest shock?
When we mapped his actual retirement age with his current setup, he was on track for 67.
He thought he was heading for 55.
He wasn’t even close.
The properties weren’t the problem.
The belief that they were a strategy… that was the problem.
So Why Are $300k+ Tech Professionals Getting This Wrong?
Three reasons.
1. Nobody teaches high-income earners how to think about tax strategically
So, they default to tactics: leases, properties, deductions, claims.
Tactics without a framework is simply noise.
2. Tech professionals are busy
Slacks and Teams pinging at 10pm ( labelled as work life balance).
Infra issues on weekends.
A sprint that magically doubled in size overnight.
There’s no time to sit down and design a $30–$50k/year consistent tax saving plan.
3. High income creates a false sense of security
“If I’m earning well, I must be doing well.”
Not true.
High income without a strategy is just a high-speed treadmill.
This Is Why I Built The Confident Choice System
Most high-income tech professionals don’t need more assets. They need a system.
A system that is uniquely tailored to tech professionals in companies like Microsoft,
Amazon and AWS. Its laser focused on reducing their annual tax bill resulting from
RSU’s. The brilliant thing about this system is that it tested and proved successful
hundreds of times.
This system fixes the three biggest financial pain points I see with tech professionals
working in companies like Atlassian and Sales force:
1. Sky-high tax bills
2. No coherent long-term strategy
3. Not knowing who to trust
It’s a 9-step roadmap that moves you from:
Stability → Clarity → Options.
We work through cash flow, debt elimination, RSU de-risking, investment structures (trusts, SMSF), insurance, estate planning—all the stuff that determines whether you can choose to work or step away at 50–55.
Most clients find an average upside of $54,543/year once we bring their financial life into alignment.
And yes, My Wealth Choice donates 1% of all revenue to charity.
Because wealth without contribution is not my gig.
So here is some food for thought
A lease is not a strategy.
A negatively geared property is not a retirement plan.
And silence… well, silence is the most expensive answer of all.
If you're earning $300k+ and don’t have a tax and wealth system, you’re already leaving tens of thousands on the table every year.
If you want the blueprint that works, book your Financial Clarity Report and Draft Strategy Session.
