The dividends I earn through KWSP will be taxed at 45% as I fall under that tax bracket in Australia. As a Australian tax resident, anything I earn overseas will be added onto my taxable income. And since my taxable income will increase from my KWSP dividends, I get less benefits from the government (e.g. childcare subsidy) - so essentially I'm losing half of what I earn through KWSP.

You don't have to be an Australian Citizen to be a tax resident.

Foreign residents are subjected to more tax. For foreign workers, you're taxed 32.5% for everything you earn up to $120k. For permanent residents, the first $18.2k are not subjected to tax, while between $18.2k and $45k, the tax rate is 19%. All income earned above $45k are taxed the same rate regardless if you're a foreigner or PR.

You can set up your own super fund where you manage your own super. It's called SMSF, or self-managed super fund. If you can get better performance and are happy to spend your own time on it, why not?

So u successful already ?

found job as what ?

you in which industry? IT? accounting?

A few questions:
Family and Friends
- Tough leaving friends behind?

Income
- Did you make dollar for dollar after moving?
- By %, you save more in Msia or Australia?

Weather
- I dont like long term winter, how do you find it?

Food
- Are you used to local foods yet?

Yep you’re on point there. That’s one of the downsides here unfortunately. Not easy to build wealth at the upper middle class level.

For base salary, if you don’t convert and compare based on numbers alone, my number is sitting at 75% of what I earned in Malaysia, while my wife earns slightly more than what she was getting previously. By %, we’re saving more here if you don’t take into account our mortgage - we were debt free in Malaysia.

Haha, you’re too kind. I scored the lowest for writing - I find that I struggle a lot with creative writing especially since I haven’t done any outside of secondary school, so it’s really gone downhill compared to my SPM days.

Sometimes it’s down to luck as well and who assesses your writing and speaking modules. You can always give it another go!

Haha FIRE can be achieved if you don’t have kids here, but definitely takes much longer than doing it in Malaysia.

For post-tax income, we’re still saving more. Minus childcare, we’re spending roughly 2k per month here. We were spending much, much more than that in Malaysia, probably cause we eat out too often back then 

I don’t think there’s a limit to IELTS, well, at least not back then. I’ve had a friend who took at least 4 in a year before getting the results he wanted. Don’t think British Council would impose a limit - they’re raking in a lot of money from re-tests.

Is it possible to retire in Australia with about AUD 100k in passive income (tax-free in perpetuity) ? Simple lifestyle ..

So there is no subsidised housing (flats/landed) for the poor in Oz, unlike MY and SG? As far as I know housing is also not cheap in other major cities like Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide.
To me SG has more pluses than OZ except work-life balance, SG is a good stepping stone to built one's qualification(education) n accumulate wealth for retirement  in cheaper countries at old age. AUD is only slightly stronger than MYR but depreciated a lot if compare with SGD. Weather wise MY n SG is more livable than South OZ for the whole year. I never like the 40C summer there.

not everything is about money

qualify of life, work life balance, job satisfaction

There is no such thing abt avoiding taxes via trust in SG. Everything must be declared under the 'Foreign Income' section of the ATO's MyGov system or via their tax agents.
If you look at the many statements in many banks in SG, they're talking abt not offering many instruments to AUst residents. This reason for this is simple - the taxation procedures too follow for these residents is tedious.

But I do admit,... there was one doctor here once who claimed he managed to circumvent the ATO, IN A LEGAL WAY. Don't know whether he was a bigmouth or what (he was totally proud abt his achievements in everything, from the funds in his bank acct to his results in IELTS      ),... but he has since disappeared from this forum after someone warned him abt something.

If he is still around, we could learn from him and gauge what he says,...

Thank you,.. been an experience debating with you,...

You’re right on the second point though - there are Malaysians who struggle here and are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They came here for a higher salary, but did not factor in the cost of living.

Is Wise the best way to transfer money?

  - MY Bank to WISE (MYR) - Pay bank fees transfer and wise fee take a small sum
  - Wise (MYR to AUD) - Pay wise fee
  - Wise AUD to AU bank - Pay wise fee

End up paying lot of misc fees

compare to traditional bank transfer

MY Bank to AU Bank Pay one time SWIFT&Forex Fee

In wise, your money is in MYR until you convert to AUD
After convert the money is in Wise until you transfer to your bank hence the steps I listed.

  - MY Bank to WISE (MYR) - Pay bank fees transfer and wise fee take a small sum
  - Wise (MYR to AUD) - Pay wise fee
  - Wise AUD to AU bank - Pay wise fee
Unless you can MYR convert to AUD and Bank directly (maybe save a bit of fees) This option I have not checked if I can do it or not.
  - MY Bank to WISE (MYR) - Pay bank fees transfer and wise fee take a small sum
  - Wise (MYR to AUD) and bank - Pay wise fee
At the end of the day, I would want final amount received to be the most like you had mentioned, but its hard to figure out which as all have fees all over the place.
Since TS did multiple of transactions and a big sum at that, I am sure he had done his home work as well.

Are there any discrimination to the Malays? These should be allowed:
1. Mosques with loudspeakers
2. Halal eateries with stickers
3. Prayer times embedded in employer culture for 5 times a day?

Hope Aussie is understanding

Suggest you stay back in Malaysia. You have all those here. Why bother to migrate? 

I had a colleague who did that. He applied for PR for himself and his whole family, once granted, his wife and kids went off and settled in Australia while he continued working in Malaysia and eventually landed a job in the middle east. He’s not subjected to Australian tax laws as he’s not a tax resident.

Either you do something similar, or you send your kids here as international students. You’ll keep your Malaysian citizenship for both options. However, if you choose to work in Australia, you’ll be subjected to Australian tax laws.

I was referring to home ownership, not home prices. kenji1903 has covered most of the home ownership costs in his reply to your post.

All those cukai + home insurance + utility (electricity/water/gas) + very minor repairs will easily add up to $10k per year.

I’m still looking for one  . I used one last year that came highly recommended as he’s a Malaysian and understands Malaysian tax laws as well and he made a couple of errors which would’ve been costly for me. Mine was a little complicated as I still had assets and other investments in Malaysia and was only able to dispose of them a couple of months after my move.

Easiest way is to sell everything before moving.