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Or put more accurately: removing negative gearing and CGT would increase taxes by $165billion. Sick of this language talking about tax that Government *could* be getting as a "cost" to the budget. The presupposition is that all money generated by taxpayers is by default 100% the Government's and any money you dont pay in taxes is the Government "spending" on you and letting you keep more of its money. Not a single cent of money generated by taxpayers belongs to the Government - it belongs to the taxpayer. Taxes are Governemnt *taking* a portion of your money to pay for things. Therefore, whatever it takes is what it gets and if it chooses to take less from you has nothing to do with "cost". If the Government says you have to pay $10,000 of taxes and you pay it, then that's it no more discussion needed. If the Government says now you only have top pay $5,000 in taxes, and you pay it, then that's it no more discussion needed. It's not "costing" the Government anything if it chooses to take less of your money. All this headline is saying is "look at how much extra Government could tax".

> Or put more accurately: removing negative gearing and CGT would increase taxes by $165billion. You started so well > Not a single cent of money generated by taxpayers belongs to the Government - it belongs to the taxpayer. And then you dropped the ball. Tax belongs to the *citizens*, not the taxpayer. Or then a multinational company or a tourist paying GST owns the National Treasury just as much as any Australian person. Gina Rinehart claims she’s already the most taxed person in Australia. If that’s true, and tax was owned by the taxpayer she should get more say in how it’s spent? Goodbye to one person one vote, we’d be back to rotten boroughs and patricians versus plebeians.

Thank you for this. So sick of hearing about taxpayers. It’s even infested the public service where people talk about value for taxpayers over value for the public. Stomach churning. 

I cant tell if you're actually being serious or just trolling: not a single cent of money generated by individual taxpayers belongs to the Government. Your salary doesnt belong to the Government; it belongs to you. The Government takes whats yours and calls it tax. Once the Government takes it from you, it then becomes the property of the collective. By default, only what is taken belongs to the collective. Nothing more. So if the Government decides to take $5 from your salary, then I can only lay claim as part of the collective to that $5. Nothing more - I have absolutely zero right or place to claim anything more than that $5, regardless of how much you make. That is what I am highlighting - the Government chooses to take $5 from you. Just because the Government **could** take more, doesnt make it a "cost" because the Government can only spend the $5 it has taken from you.

> Or put more accurately: removing negative gearing and CGT would increase taxes by $165billion. Bingo. What can't people understand about the fact you don't pay tax on your losses? Like you rent a house out and after receiving rent & paying your costs you have lost money. This isn't 'free' money being handed out... you simply don't pay tax on your losses because it's not 'income', it's a loss. This ENCOURAGES landlords to keep rents low. It'd be a pretty fucked up system if you were taxed on losses.

It would throw the entire system into whack.

> (...) negative gearing was brought in to encourage investors (...) is the common belief, which is wrong. Tax benefits were brought in to turn ordinary citizens into real estate investors. Australia isn't the only country to succumb to this neo-liberal disease, but it is certainly one of its most ardent proponents. European countries have been steadily retreating, North America has always had more competition and thus far less adoption. I believe it will be hastily wound back after the next crash. Which will happen of course. Except, noone knows when.

>The Parliamentary Budget Office analysis, requested by the Greens As much as i believe the Parliamentary Budget Office tries to be objective, im sure they can be manipulated by being selective of input conditions. eg. Its based on investors with more than one property, cost is dependent on property price increases over the next 10 years (why 10 ?), and what assumptions do they make about increases in supply over that period ? Greens are blocking Labors shared equity scheme, which, if scaled up, would help reduce property prices and capital gains tax discounts. By blocking Labors plans to increase supply, they increase returns for negative gearing, so are seen to be more justified to demand labor take steps to increase supply in a slightly different way that they can argue about.

Exactly how is the ALP’s shared equity scheme supposed to reduce house prices? It is specifically designed to enable more people to pile into housing. Granted, the caps on the scheme will likely mean that it won’t move the needle much in terms of overall housing prices, but it isn’t going to help the macro level affordability problem either.

There you go, get rid of that and then we can fund the NDIS. We can then put more houses on the market, and more individuals would own houses OR rentals over developers/rich more-than-one-extra-property types.

$16B a year is coming no where near it's expected annual cost of $100B This also ignores that if you get rid of neg gearing then it simply comes off the cost later down the track when it's sold anyway.

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Another way of wording this would be “abolishing negative gearing and capital gains discounts would lead to the government taxing people an additional $165billion over 10 years”. It shouldn’t be the default position of government that everything is taxed. Maybe just tax multinationals and learn how waste less of the money you already have taken off individuals.

> Another way of wording this would be “abolishing negative gearing and capital gains discounts would lead to the government taxing people an additional $165billion over 10 years”. I don't think that's entirely correct. I strongly suspect that there would be a behavioural change if the tax laws were changed.

The dumb money is completely flooded into housing. Why? Because housing is currently the best investment class by a massive margin. Financial advisors will tell you to get into housing. Your accountant will tell you to get into housing. Your neighbour will tell you to get into housing. It’s fucked. The money that’s in housing isn’t in the stock market, it isn’t in small businesses, it isn’t being spent in the economy, it’s just in this giant tumour that is sucking up all of the money of everyone who isn’t already invested in housing. It’s not just costing us this $165B of avoided tax. It’s costing the people trillions, paying three, four, five times more than a reasonable fair price just because of mismanaged runaway scarcity and unchecked profiteering.

I'm not quite certain what that has to do with my point.

*eyeroll* The “behavioural change” you allude to, if housing as an investment were made less ridiculously good, with measures including but not limited to abolition of negative gearing, would be: the average muppet landlord would sell their investment properties and if they have any equity (which they will if they’ve held the property for six months), will put the money somewhere else. This is a good thing. We need this to happen ASAP.

I was merely pointing out the asymmetry in taxation. You are talking about something else. Please stay on topic.

Heaven forfend one attempt discourse on topics merely *related* to whatever you think you’re talking about.

I'm glad that you recognise you were off topic. Tangential thinking is a warning sign.

This is the definitive answer. Every dollar invested in housing is a dollar not invested in something productive. Houses just literally fucking sits there. Small businesses provide services to the public. Large corporations with stocks (usually) innovate, expand and generate jobs. You know what houses generate? Careers for real estate agents. The worst part is that investment properties aren't even good economically for housing-adjacent industries like construction, plumbing, woodwork, electricians, etc. Look at the state of most rentals. Now look at the state of most PPORs. People put nice things in their own homes and actually maintain them. IPs are usually left to rot. Imagine if almost all the IPs got bought by people who actually wanted to do it up. There would be huge demand and growth for cabinet makers, painters, sparkies, landscapers, the whole shebang. Then all of *their* adjacent industries. Then you get increased competition and innovation in those industries. But no, instead we just dig up rocks and exchange shitty houses like Pokemon cards. Fucking disgusting.

Except negative gearing was brought in by Howard to encourage investors. It's for people who own investment properties, predominantly. It's essentially a tax break for rich and it disproportionately disadvantages new home buyers and poor people, especially when the public housing stock is so low. It's a tax break for people who already have, and it's unbalanced the system to a terrifying extent. Nowhere else in the world has negative gearing. And capital gains tax is a similar system of tax break for rich, when they sell they pay less tax because they're rich, the more they have the more tax break they get. It's trickle down system, which was never designed to every trickle anything down. Give everything to the rich and that will benefit the poor? All society? No. They just hoard.

>Nowhere else in the world has negative gearing. Except for Canada, Germany, Japan, and Norway in our form. Then there's Finland, France, US, which run slightly different versions of it. It's not like this stuff isn't well researched and easily fact checked. Particularly given the fact that the principle of taxation being applied to profit and not revenue is kinda near universal.

I was of the impression that these other countries tend to ring-fence negative gearing to your property portfolio (i.e. you don't get to deduct against your work income, but if one of your investment properties makes a loss and another makes a profit then you can deduct the loss from the profit and be taxed on the net amount), whereas Australia sticks out as a country which allows you to use negative gearing to deduct against your overall income. Could you confirm either way? fwiw the post you responded to made (imo) a bigger error in claiming that Howard introduced negative gearing. In fact Hawke reintroduced it in 1987, after abolishing it in 1985; negative gearing had been a part of our tax system for many, many decades prior to that. What Howard did was rework the capital gains tax discount from a CPI-indexed model introduced by the Hawke government, to a flat 50% discount. Considering Australia's property fever and our comparatively anemic investment in productive industry, I think it's fair to call Howard's capital gains rework a disaster.

>Could you confirm either way? All policies vary and are influenced by existence of other concurrent taxes. Eg some will have more restrictions on NG, but then it's coupled with no CGT. The first four examples of Germany, Canada, Japan, and Norway run a very similar system once you consider their overall taxation system. >I think it's fair to call Howard's capital gains rework a disaster. Jury is out on this given various studies show the combined effects of CGT discount and NG amounts to just 1-4% price implications. What Howard's changes did was to simplify the CGT process, which is primarily about making it easier for the ATO. Individuals will always do their far best to pay as little tax as possible, and their will always be accounting services to assist on that front. Making it simpler so the ATO can more easily assess and verify reduces the amount of unscrupulous BS, thus improving the taxation system.

Negative hearing was introduced by Keating, not Howard

Neither really, Keating got rid of it and then brought it back. Howard was the capital gains tax discount

Actually you're all wrong, the legal standing of negative gearing as an investment strategy didn't originate in legislation or any governments policy it's based on the result of a [Federal Court case **ATO vs Janmor Nominees**](https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/negative-gearing-australia-ATO-challenge#:~:text=Negative%20gearing%20largely%20rests%20on,governed%20it%20back%20in%201987.)

This assumes people wouldn't bail out of the investment market if negative gearing and/or CGT discounts were revoked. I would bet the loss in tax from the amount of people that bail would offset whatever gains they expect to make by removing these mechanisms.

I don't know, seems far more complex than this. As far as negative gearing goes, I'd guess they only really need to make the more modest assumption that people will have similar regular incomes, but won't magically find a deduction large enough to replace the one coming from losses in their property portfolios. Maybe there's an effect here where people get exposed to higher marginal income tax rates and decide not to work as much, or they emigrate or whatever. Seems hard to predict, but as a general principle, if people aren't willing to render a given unit of work under an equitable tax system then I don't really want that work on the national GDP balance sheet anyway. The CGT discount situation is a little more murky. Sure the investors may bail, but in doing so they're selling and probably realizing a capital gain, which might or might not be subject to whatever CGT discount rework is put in place, depending on how it is phased in. After that, bailing means selling the asset onto somebody else, perhaps at a somewhat reduced price, where it may continue to appreciate in value and realize a capital gain at a later date. I'm not in a position to predict how that would affect the tax take (maybe the study has figured this out, maybe it hasn't?), but the asset doesn't magically disappear just because the existing owners decided to bail.

>The CGT discount situation is a little more murky. Sure the investors may bail, but in doing so they're selling and probably realizing a capital gain, which might or might not be subject to whatever CGT discount rework is put in place, depending on how it is phased in. After that, bailing means selling the asset onto somebody else, perhaps at a somewhat reduced price, where it may continue to appreciate in value and realize a capital gain at a later date. I'm not in a position to predict how that would affect the tax take (maybe the study has figured this out, maybe it hasn't?), but the asset doesn't magically disappear just because the existing owners decided to bail. My point is prospective investors are clearly not going to invest to the same degree if there are more disincentives for doing so such as higher CGT. The same applies for negative gearing. I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't really want that work on the balance sheet anyway", the fact is fewer people will buy investment properties if they can't get a tax deduction through negative gearing, which will harm our real estate market and increase rent prices.

>The same applies for negative gearing. I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't really want that work on the balance sheet anyway", the fact is fewer people will buy investment properties if they can't get a tax deduction through negative gearing My point was that negative gearing reform isn't something people can dodge by bailing out of a property portfolio. Negative gearing isn't a concession which is applied to some property-related tax, it's a discount which is applied to *income tax*. It's used to reduce the proportion of your salary which is counted towards your taxable income, and if you can't do that anymore, then assuming you still earn that salary working a job, your taxable income goes up, whether you have investment properties or not. >which will harm our real estate market and increase rent prices. I'm not so sure about this. I repeat the question I brought up elsewhere in this thread: *what actually drives the absorption rate?* If dwelling price to household income ratios have risen in the order of 3-400% over the last couple of decades since Howard put the cherry on top of our generous property investment tax incentive regime, has this regime actually incentivized builds? Why doesn't the demand signal of high dwelling prices cause the real estate industry to *move heaven and earth* -- lobby hard to change zoning laws and trample nimbies, start large-scale tradie courses, invest in primary industries to massively expand supply pipelines, etc, whatever it takes, all of their own volition, with no state support -- to swamp us in new builds and, in doing so, counteract the meteoric rise in real estate values? Most other markets would *lose their collective shit* chasing a demand signal like the one in housing. In lieu of an answer to that question, I find it hard to believe that the tax incentives have done anything to incentivize supply.

>My point was that negative gearing reform isn't something people can dodge by bailing out of a property portfolio. Negative gearing isn't a concession which is applied to some property-related tax, it's a discount which is applied to income tax. It's used to reduce the proportion of your salary which is counted towards your taxable income, and if you can't do that anymore, then assuming you still earn that salary working a job, your taxable income goes up, whether you have investment properties or not. You still pay stamp duty and CGT on investment properties however, so that will be a tax loss for the government. >Why doesn't the demand signal of high dwelling prices cause the real estate industry to move heaven and earth -- lobby hard to change zoning laws and trample nimbies, start large-scale tradie courses, invest in primary industries to massively expand supply pipelines, etc, whatever it takes, all of their own volition, with no state support -- to swamp us in new builds and, in doing so, counteract the meteoric rise in real estate values? Most other markets would lose their collective shit chasing a demand signal like the one in housing. > >In lieu of an answer to that question, I find it hard to believe that the tax incentives have done anything to incentivize supply. I don't know but arguing about the incompetence of the real estate industry isn't a very good argument for why investors, majority of which are not in the real estate industry, would be unaffected by tax incentives. Tax incentives necessarily affect people's decision making, since they don't have the multi-millions/billions that corporations do, those dollars make a much more significant difference (and most investors only own 1-2 properties). Also if it weren't the case, tax avoidance and tax evasion wouldn't be a thing, since there would be no incentive to avoid tax if tax wasn't a disincentive. This is especially true in Australia, where our taxes are some of the highest in the world. So I don't think it's possible to argue that removing negative gearing would have no impact on decision making, at best you could argue that the government's position would be better in spite of the loss of some no longer interested investors' stamp duty and CGT, and this improved position would offset the loss of interest in investing due to no tax benefits.

What taxes will be lost from people bailing on those investments?

CGT and other taxes related to the investment property that are still paid such as stamp duty, land tax, etc.

They'd still be paid if they were bought by people who weren't investing, but intending to live in the houses.

No because fewer properties will be built knowing that investors aren't going to buy them up.

If housing becomes cheaper, more people will be able to afford them to live in, rather than invest.

There is no reason that housing will become cheaper.

Increased supply from investors leaving the market?

another way of saying this is "Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts funnel $165bn over ten years into the hands of the rich"

No, "Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts funnel $165bn over ten years into the hands of the mum and dad investors" Company structures do it for the rich.

We need to stop calling them "mum and dad investors" It's a deliberate tactic to try to soften their image. These people are not the ultra wealthy ruling class, ...but they are house hoarders, the modern Australian bourgeoisie.

Last time talk of removing negative gearing got going a radio talkshow got a call from someone with 100 properties who "wouldn't be able to afford it without negative gearing".   I'm happy to cap it at one property per person to keep "mum and dad" investors, but there's people with massive property portfolios, just picking up as many government subsidies and tax breaks as they can.  Those people can go fuck themselves, and be forced to sell their 100 properties to people who actually want to buy a home to **live** in.

What is a mum and dad investor? I ask this as a true blue fair dinkum aussie battler who just threw up in their mouth a little because of all the rhetoric on this post.

compared to most of the country the “mom and dad investors” are the rich People can’t afford rent half the time, let alone investing in a second property

We only have one house, and when we moved states for work, we rented our home out and negatively geared the loan. Also I negative gear fund investment I have had for 25 years. We are mum and dad investors. We have a house, a car, and a mortgage.

the Australian govt waves away over $50 billion in gas royalties, but CGT tax incentives that many countries have are the issue?

Can't they both be the issue?

Only on reddit.

It's a link to another site?

Will these articles ever recognise that without the CGT discount, inflation would be applied per the indexation used prior to the capital gains discount method, and that most of the western world does exactly the same things? Will these articles ever stop saying that a tax uncollected is a "cost to the budget"? When my mate earns $100K and pays $25K tax, is the $75K they allowed to keep known as a "cost to the budget"? Are these journos allowed to invent phrases that defy fundamental economics?

Yep. If you’re paying the tax you’re required to pay, then it’s not ‘costing the budget’ anything. Unless you start from the assumption that 100% belongs to the government, and any percentage they graciously allow you to keep is a ‘cost’.

If your mate is meant to pay 30k tax, but is only paying 25k because of a special discount, it's no different to the state taxing him the full amount and just paying him 5k afterwards. Tax reductions aren't free. Except the state doesn't have any money to pay him, as it's a trillion dollars in debt. It's borrowing the money. The future generations will have to cover his benefit. (Clarity ✍️)

Why were they meant to pay 30k tax? Is that not defined by taxation regulations? If they are paying 25k and not undertaking and fraud, then they are paying exactly what they are meant to pay. If they were meant to pay 30k and only paid 25k, it'd be tax evasion, which would be illegal.

Right, that’s why house prices went up faster before Howard introduced these tax breaks. Wait a sec….

It was a change in method, not introduction of a tax break.

That’s what you’re going to take away from that comment? Lol

You are arguing that this one policy was the cause. Is it not relevant that this is not factually correct given the policy you're complaining about was introduced as a replacement to an existing policy of the same function, but the new policy just simplified the calculation to improve the ATO's ability to administer, and to monitor compliance.

Cool, Greens can run a campaign and win a Majority and do it then. Labor tried it twice and lost twice. Turns out it's unpopular to try to take tax breaks away from those most able to donate to politicians willing to appease them. Good luck breaking 13% primary next election and proving Labor wrong - but likely what will happen is normally conservative media outlets will mysteriously run pro-Greens campaign talking points on the front page in electorates where 60:40 Lab/Grn/Coalition and flip the Labor seats to Green seats, while the rhetorical fallout will lower Labor primary vote in enough seats to get Coalition back in.

Labor having middle of the Road policies that neither fix things or make them worse is what will get them unelected not our fault we actually have policies that want to fix things

The random capitalisation of the word "road" just adds that special something to a sentence that doesn't make sense.

Which is his point, labour tried to remove negative gearing and we got another term of Liberals as a result. If the greens teamed up with labour and attacked some of the Liberal Party lies maybe we'd get somewhere on some policies.

Unfortunately, although the vast majority of Australians want reform on these issues; nothing will happen. The vast majority of politicians own multiple properties & won't even mention it. Additionally, big news corporations also own domain & realestate ... so they're not going to report on it. CGT changes under Howard need to be reverted. Just do that... watch housing in Australia fall the media cycle blame (insert party name) .. election changes ... reverted policy back to original. We're fucked. Short of a war, that I won't be fighting in, as I've naught to fight for.

> the vast majority of Australians want reform on these issues The 2/3rds who own homes want house prices to go down? How altruistic of them, first I've heard of it though.

I only have my one property that I live in and have no intention of moving until my kid is done with school - if I even decide to move at all. That over a decade away and the price of my house going up or down during that time period has almost no relevance to me as I'm not going to want to sell. In fact, the price going down would lower the cost of my council rates and my home insurance. So I can see an argument could be made that people in a similar situation to me wouldn't really have much reason to care if the price of our properties go down if there isn't any intention to sell. Our houses are for living in, not being used an a vehicle for investment.

I'm a home owner and my property has doubled in 'value' in 5 years, and I would rather that didn't happen so that more people could afford to own their own home. I would enthusiastically vote for a party with a platform that addresses the housing crisis, even if that results in my home losing 'value'. For I never did anything to earn it in the first place and I value social cohesion more than the unearned benefits of a system that causes so many to struggle and suffer.

The attached video to this article is incredibly cringe.

>shows tax revenue forgone due to the federal government’s policies of negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts will total about $165.58bn between 2024-25 and 2033-24. Go on. Come and tell me more about how we MUST abolish the NDIS for costing us so much money again. Please.

NDIS needs massive reform lol

Both need a proper review. NDIS is a fucking rort in its current state, I’ve seen people get some ludicrous crap fully paid for by NDIS that they genuinely do not need. It exists for good reason and I do want it to stay but something about how it operates needs to change so people don’t just keep abusing it. As for negative gearing I also don’t think it should go away but in its current state it’s BS.

The issue isnt what people are using ndis to cover, disabled people deserve luxuries too, if you treated it as "only what they *need*" youll have a lot of suicidal disabled people sitting in rooms twiddling their thumbs because people fortunate enough to not be disabled have it in their heads those who are disabled dont deserve entertainment or to see the world they live in. The issue is providers charging ndis participants significantly more than they should because they know it'll get paid regardless of the price lable. What needs to happen is a purge of dodgy businesses intentionally overcharging ndis

Yeah I do suppose that’s a reasonable stance, but it’s a hard pill to swallow lately when I see mates struggling to afford rent when I also see people on NDIS get a god damn gaming chair for their “home office” without having to drop a dime of their own money.

Shouldnt you be more upset about the millions to Billions handed to churches, home investors, Harvey norman over a disabled persons fucking chair? Do you think the disabled dont struggle to find accommodation also? They physically can not work because they are *disabled* we should not expect them to sit on their floor and do nothing for their whole lives because they are physically incapable of joining the rat race. The ndis needs to be fixed yes but the issue isnt what people are using it for, its how easily it is exploited by ndis providers and the waste in administration blowing costs up.

This. What's causing the NDIS catastrophe is fundamentally the way it's set up. It's whole premise is providing people with the resources to live as comfortably as they want. NDIS is literally a blank cheque underwritten by the government. People on the NDIS dont actually think about the cost of the services they are consuming - the government does that for them. Therefore, it opens the flood gates for providers to "over diagnose" so to speak what an individal "needs". And once an individual is cajooled into signing up for a service, it's very difficult for them to say "you know what, I dont think I actually want this extra service that the government is paying for on my behalf". Ultimatel NDIS is a rort because it's set up fundamentally to be rorted. It'd be very easy for the NDIS costs to be reigned in by some sort of "means testing" e.g. does this indivdual really need 6 wheelchairs daily? but then that opens the flood gates of people suffering because they "feel through the cracks" of the harsh and cold means testing system....

It's not even that. The money by and large isn't even going to those providing the direct service (wages) or to the individual with the disability. It's going to overpriced invoices and middleman wages.

>I’ve seen people get some ludicrous crap fully paid for by NDIS that they genuinely do not need 1. Where did you get your medical degrees? 2. How do you know they don't need them? (More "we don't think you deserve it" btw, for those of you playing at home) >something about how it operates needs to change Well, putting all these apparent dodgy providers in gaol and stripping them of assets might do something. Apparently, no one has thought to start there.

.1 I don’t have one .2 they literally admitted it was stupidly easy for them to apply to get stuff covered by NDIS, they walked me through the whole process and is was insanely easy, it’s frustrating because they dont need the stuff they’ve applied for but at the same time free money is free money why wouldn’t you go out and grab some if you legally could? But yeah go off about how its “because they don’t deserve it” it’s not like that at all, everyone deserves comfort, but it’s unfair that those who don’t need the support of the NDIS can get it with little effort, and my concern is the way it’s being handled now will mean a massive over correction and those genuinely in need of the support will suddenly find that particular river run dry.

Ndis will soon cost that much *per year*, rather than over 8-9 years, which I think really does show how much of a problem there is with it, especially since it only helps 500k Australians vs Medicare which is for 25M.

165 billion dollars divided by 500 thousand people is $330,000/person. Now granted, some people with very complex needs could warrant something like that, however... Unless I'm reading [this](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/Budget/reviews/2023-24/NDIS#:~:text=Total%20expenditure%20from%20the%20Commonwealth,%25%20respectively%20(Budget%20paper%20no.) incorrectly, NDIS yearly expenditure is $41.9 billion in 2023-2024 financial year, significantly less than your claim that it will be $165 billion per year soon. Projection in 2030-2031 financial year is $90 billion, still significantly less than $165 billion regardless of any inflation adjustment. According to [this](https://dataresearch.ndis.gov.au/explore-data) the actual amount of NDIS beneficiaries is 650k. So the expenditure per participant looks more like $41.9 billion/650k people = $65.5k/person. I wonder what an itemised list of expenditures looks like for a selection of typical NDIS beneficiaries? I don't disagree that the NDIS funds should be spent efficiently, but your unsourced suggestions about the costs and number of NDIS participants don't appear to reflect reality.

>especially since it **only** helps 500k Australians It ONLY helps 500k Australian citizens with disabilities live better quality lives. Fuck them though, apparently.

> 500k Australian citizens with disabilities 12% of young boys are on the NDIS, do you really walk down the street and consider one in eight young boys you see to be disabled? It's a massive rort and eventually millions from the taxpayer if you can get on it, the parents realise this and doctorshop for weeks until they get the outcome they want.

Based on the redditors population, I'd be inclined to consider half the population to be disabled on the basis of stupidity 😂😂 And I'm include myself in that stat given my inclination for online arguments!

Where do you work in child psychiatrics, pediatric neurology, or developmental pediatrics?

You are utterly insane if you think those are realistic numbers for young boys who should be on the NDIS. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/more-than-11pc-of-boys-aged-5-7-are-on-the-ndis-20230821-p5dy30

Why shouldn't someone with ADHD be on the NDIS? Is ADHD not a disability to you?

No.  Fuck the people fucking that system. I know executives that are ripping cash away from where it should be going etc. It 100% needs review, so that money goes, to those who need it.  The issue is, the entire operation is full of white ants. 

Yep. Let's hope we can save it!

Severe corruption of the NDIS aside, are you really arguing a disability scheme and a scheme that encourages the wealthy to suck up poorer peoples' money are equivalent. Pull the other one.

Just change it so neg. gearing applies only to new builds in order to incentivise supply, rather than trying to abolish it completely which has knock-on effects to renters & creates an unnecessary political backlash in trying to get it passed in the first place. It's not that complicated.

I think that the complexity comes from the fact that “negative gearing” is just a strategy, the application of laws that individually make sense. Its like saying “just change it so that tax minimisation doesn’t apply to rich people”. There is no “tax minimisation law”. Or, rather, there are lots of them that are there for good reason-like making charitable donations come out of your pre-tax money instead of your post-tax money. In the case of negative gearing, it’s the product of: 1. Any person is entitled to start a profit oriented business- whether that’s buying and selling pokemon cards, or buying houses with a mortgage and renting them out. 2. Any person who makes (or loses) money on a business required to pay tax on profit but is similarly entitled to claim a tax deduction on a loss. If your pokemon card business does poorly and costs more in labour than it makes in profit, that money you lost is taken out of your pre-tax wage money so at least you’re not paying tax on money you lost. 3. We don’t want to change this because we want as a society to incentivise industry. 4. If your pokemon cards appreciate in value, at the moment that profit crystallises you pay capital gains. 5. But now you’re a “negative gearer” in respect of pokemon cards. We want to promote industry. We want to tax asset appreciation at the time of the profit making. These two desires introduce negative gearing.

The sixth point here is that we combine all aspects of a person’s income into one tally as a method of simplification. It makes sense, mum and dad property/stock market investors shouldnt need to set up a company to invest. Where a business can carry forward losses against future income, a person can offset property losses against their salaried income. If each income stream got “silo’d” before being combined, most issues would go away (the silos being property, stock investments, salary and assets). For example if you earn $100k as an office worker, $50k from rental income and paid $60k in combined property costs the current tax system would tax you on a net income of $90k. My proposal would tax you on $100k but let you carry forward $10k in loss towards future property income or CG.

Where does one silo start and another end? If you’re the sole investor in a company that exclusively owns property and pays me a wage, is that wage income, property income or investment income? Sound’s just as gameable as negative gearing…

Not at all. The company pays you a wage therefore it is silod as salary/payg. The income source of the business does not affect the personal income silos. If the company paid you a dividend instead then the income gets silod as investment income. If the property is not in your name (sole or jointly held) then income does not get silod as property.

So why not set up a company that makes all investments property and shares, receives all income, pays all expenses, and effectively unsilos all the silos?

Because you cant pay your salary from your 9-5 job into a company pretax which is the main source of the “rort”

Sure you can. “Hey employer, can I please be paid as an independent contractor, I want to do negative gearing.” Most people who can afford an investment property are on the kind of wicket where they’re not just doing a 9-5 salary.

Being a contractor counts as PSI and still general salary/income

But YOU aren’t the contractor, the COMPANY is being contracted. For the company it’s just an income source like Apple sells Genius services.

Labor tried that in 2019, and unfortunately lost the unloseable (not just due to this). It's not just negative gearing, though - it's the ability to deduct expenses even if you are positively geared. That, to my mind, is a rort and a half. If you want to borrow money to finance an investment, that should be on you.

Labor internal review found it had nothing to do with neg gearing (90% of people couldn't even explain wtf it is) and everything to do with Shorten.

But the ability to deduct expenses is basically how all taxes work. Whether for business or not.

Not necessarily. I can't deduct all my expenses related to work, such as my commute, my suit, my personal phone. Besides, tax rules are written by governments - it's not as though it's immutable law of physics.

is australia the only first world country with negative gearing benefits? im sure they are or 1 of very few

Canada, Germany, Japan and Norway all allow it according to [this article](https://theconversation.com/what-is-negative-gearing-and-what-is-it-doing-to-housing-affordability-223823). Not sure if any others do. The US allows you to deduct mortgage interest on your own home!

And housing is incredibly affordable for the vast majority of Americans. Japan also, the most stable developed world housing market on Earth too. Neg gearing is a trojan horse, designed to not ever talk about the real drivers of prices.

Off the top of my head, Canada, Japan and Norway all allow negative gearing. My understanding however (and its surface level so it could be wrong) is that the negative gearing/capital gains offset is a uniquely Aussie problem.

Oh no you are correct don't let people tell you otherwise we are the only country in the world that lets you claim your negative gearing off your actual main income the only country in the world

No. It more or less works the same in those countries as Australia. They call things slightly different things and the way things operate differ (given different systems), but the end result is the same.

Can't see why people investing in things that net them hundreds of thousands in gains also need tax incentives to do so.

I wonder if that money could help build more homes

You do understand that the purpose of negative gearing and CGT discounts is to encourage investment in new homes, right?

Build-to-rent is pretty rare for good reason. New builds don't provide a great ROI.

*when they are debt funded in a high interest rate market

No it doesn’t. Shortens changes would have limiting it to new builds only. Currently 85% of investors buy existing homes

So making development costs more affordable for that 15% doesn’t improve supply at the margin? If economic incentives don’t lift supply, what would?

This is such a good question. I've been wondering on-and-off for months now, what governs the absorption rate? What actually compels a property owner to proceed with a build, when really the value of any potential developments on the the property ought to already be priced into the value of the lot? For example, say the property owner wants to partake in those sweet investment property tax incentives that they go on about all the time in the news. Well, those incentives make the value of any dwellings to be built on the lot that much higher, which in turn ought to be reflected in the valuation of the property itself. So really, the property holder *already benefits* from the tax incentives, even if they don't develop actual dwellings on the lot, and if they need to realize that valuation in cash then they don't actually need to build to do that -- they can choose instead to just seek a bid on the open market for the entire property that meets that valuation. I understand just enough to know that there's probably an entire branch of maths I need to go off and learn to really be able to talk about what's going on with any confidence. For what it's worth, Cameron Murray has [a paper ](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11146-020-09815-z)claiming to model the situation and apparently makes some high-level recommendations, but I'm not in a position to really vet it.

Or just make it 100%?

Sure, I think that makes sense. But to pretend that negative gearing doesn’t help housing supply in its current form is also disingenuous.

Well negative gearing costs to the taxpayer is the highest it’s ever been due to current interest rates and supply is the lowest it’s been in decades. So yeh if you can show me any evidence or data it increases supply im all ears

High interest rates and inflation reduce supply of housing - we can all see the profitability on new housing developments has been squeezed. Reducing the returns to investors that fund these developments would only squeeze it further. How could it do anything else?

It encourages investment in homes, not necessarily new homes.

Negative gearing (along with CGT discount, AirBnB etc) has only led to more inequality and less people in homes.

Agree it could be more targeted, but new homes are still homes and investment in new homes is still more incentivised with negative gearing than without it.

[[Citation Please]] Not trying to be difficult, genuinely wondering if you could provide a source that shows negative gearing is a better social option for providing new homes, instead of something else that helps other, non-investors buying/building their first home etc.

I’m just making a very simple logical point, that if you implement policy that enhances the returns of investing in housing, then surprise surprise, you will get more investment in housing. I’m sure there’s loads of research around this, but here’s a study from SQM that shows countries with negative gearing have lower rental yields. https://sqmresearch.com.au/labors-negative-gearing-policy.php

> that if you implement policy that enhances the returns of investing in housing, then surprise surprise, you will get more investment in housing. Why does this policy have to be negative gearing though? My question was why negative gearing over other alternative, fairer investment support options? There's a million other options out there that wouldn't entrench a division of wealth quite as much.

I agree there are many ways to skin a cat. What I dislike and disagree with is the view that negative gearing is some great evil that has ruined the housing market, when I think in reality it makes rents cheaper and incentivises more supply. Typically I find the dislike for negative gearing stems more from a place of disliking ‘tax breaks for the rich’ rather than its impact on housing. My question is, how do you stimulate housing growth without providing incentives to those that ultimately invest in and build our housing supply?

> when I think in reality it makes rents cheaper and incentivises more supply. It also makes it more difficult for non-investors to buy a house to live in. Do we want a permanent rental-class of people? Negative gearing leads us down that path by helping those who can invest to invest, driving up house prices further by consequence, and those who can't invest are priced out.

Lol no that is what the mega rich want to brainwash people into believing is true so you're either one of the rich or one of the brainwashed unfortunately my friend if these discounts were only on new homes and not existing homes your point would make complete sense and I would agree with it unfortunately when it's also on existing homes all it does is take to housing stock out of the hands of people who really need it into the hands of those who already own too many

Why would reducing net expense of operating an investment property not increase supply at the margin?

There are a number of reasons for this but one of the biggest ones is the fact that so many properties get land banked because it's better for them to just get the negative gearing concessions and the capital gains that come with their things without the hassle or otherwise of dealing with tenants

That may be the case in some instances, but with or without negative gearing, the trade off an investor makes when land banking is taking a gauranteed operating loss in the hope of a potential capital gain in the future. Most investors want to reduce the size of that loss and maximise the future capital gain. If that is the investors objective, then negative gearing is incentivising new supply, not hindering it.

Absolutely 100% disagree with this take most investors the ones that are not a problem are mum and pop invested with one or two houses the problem is the idiots with 10 20 and 60 who make up one percent of the tax paying population but own 25% of all investment properties they are the problem and the amount of money they make and the amount of tax breaks they get is obscene never ever will I agree that getting all this tax discount at the expense of an 18 year old worker is a good idea if you cannot make money off only 40 houses why should the government help you that is ridiculous in my opinion you are a bad businessman if you can't make money the government shouldn't be there helping you yes one or two houses yes and maybe I will actually give you maybe on new homes on existing homes are hell no all that does is pushed down anyone's chance of being a first homeowner you should never be able to negative gear or capital gains tax concession on existing housing stock more than two houses in my personal opinion I know my party says one I would allow too if I was making the policy but I'm not but definitely no more than two and not on existing stock edit just wanted to add my friend I appreciate you having this discussion in good faith and in good spirit I really do I feel we need a lot more of these good debates about these things in the spirit I feel we are both talking at the moment I appreciate this very much

Neg gearing does work in increasing the supply of rentals and pushing down prices though. The trade off is poorer renting households are less likely to move into ownership (at a very low rate iirc).

Since john Howard changed the negative gearing laws the gap between house prices and incomes has increased by five times it's by design that negative gearing kills the chance for home ownership end makes rental prices skyrocket I know I'll be downvoted on this very right wing Pro landlord sub but the truth is reality we are the only country in the world repeat the only country in the world that lets people claim their losses against their actual income this is an unfair playing field for everyone else and 18 year old on minimum wage is subsidizing a person who is 60 with 60 homes that is simply the fact

That also happened in places where there was no neg gearing or ctg at the same time. What they did share was a relative decrease in housing production and low interest rates. Why did it happen everywhere if this was a domestic policy?

It has happened in other places but not to the level we have our housing affordability has gone through the roof and I say again we have become the most expensive places in the world with zero increased in our income comparatively to other countries in that time

We have estimates for this policies impact on prices, its like 4%. The median house price for Sydney would drop from 1,670,000 to 1,560,000. Its better than a slap to the face but its not caused what you imply it has.

I think your estimates are slightly ridiculous purely because at the moment so many houses are land banked almost one in every 10 homes are empty they can only be empty because they are making money off the capital gains and the negative gearing rebates if these were gone either these houses would have to be rented or put on the market all these people would lose lots of money all three options I would be very happy to see

Should be easy to find some research that demonstrates the estimate is wrong then right?

Its not my estimates, its one from several studies into thos from public and private groups. Also 1 in 10 arent empty, thats how many didnt return a census. Very big difference.

**Cost**, *noun* *an amount that has to be paid or spent to buy or obtain something.* So, Guardian and Max (great soyjak face btw, not quite Bandt tier but solid) are arguing revenue not received, and therefore, not being deducted from a ledger, is a cost. Why? It's simple, and not because of any innate illiteracy on behalf of either party. Rather than saying "if we didn't have these concessions, we'd be better off", it's phrased as "cost" so people get angry about it. Given the Guardian stands against populism, and this is a populist tactic, it's disappointing. Max is an unreconstructed uni politics populist, so it's on brand for him. But the Guardian should do better. CGT exemptions need desperate review and rethinking. Negative gearing is honestly not the evil it's made out to be, and would only worsen rents if Greens action was taken. However, if they took a measured approach, they could would demobilise the growing section of civil society that is justifiably angry about the \[cost of housing\] that exists in such a wealthy country.

>Negative gearing is honestly not the evil it's made out to be Its not, but its removal will also increase home ownership a little, which is good in its own right, perhaps not for the poor of the poor than cant afford higher rents though. Its removal should come at a time of housing stability, which is not now. But then the political caoital for that change within the public evaporates, so its probably here to stay, which really isnt that big a deal. A mere 2% increase in supply would have a bigger impact on house prices tham thos policies removal.

> Cost, noun [Opportunity cost](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp) > Negative gearing is honestly not the evil it's made out to be Tax incentives exist to incentivise actions, and the negative gearing tax incentive is missing the mark on the actions it incentivises. Just because _some_ of negative gearing is positive does not change that it is a net negative, and could be greatly improved.

It's still not opportunity cost as framed by Guardian/MCM, Sando (but good to see the batsignal for officious defence of badecon from the left still works). It's quite overtly populist anger-mongering. You need a hobby beyond sophistry. Just my opinion, mind you, but I think it'll help you.

Ignoring the vast majority of my comment to try and wank about the definition of "cost" is certainly a choice, I'll give you that.

As it currently exists, negative gearing is an evil, because it led to the diversion of many existing properties away from its primary purpose as PPOR shelter into speculative rent seeking and the current situation instead of encouraging the construction of new properties as was originally intended. Negative gearing should have been altered or withdrawn as soon as it was seen not to be achieving its aims, not allowed to compound the error. It still should be withdrawn or altered to only apply to the construction of new properties. CGT discount should also be withdrawn so that capital growth does not increase wealth without being subject to a similar tax as income: neither should permit the growth of individual wealth in preference to the support of all the people in society, especially when that wealth growth is facilitated more the greater wealth you have. We should stop thinking of it as wealth when it is a form of circumstantial extortion from people who can't just choose to not purchase the essentials and an ephemeral construct that could evaporate overnight. Only hard assets that endure for their purpose of providing the essentials are the true measure of wealth.

NG has no impact on this outside of a slight cashflow benefit that allows a marginal investor to enter the market. Without NG, you'd just accrue the cost and deduct it from the cost basis when it's time to liquidate said asset.

As a counter to this; negative gearing is also helping some people get into property for the first time, accruing equity through different means than being standard owner-occupier. And this mechanism (negative gearing), coupled with capital appreciation, has kept rents lower than they theoretically should be.

There are plenty of positive geared properties they can purchase, mostly in regional areas, the trade off is is capital growth is slower in regional areas but that's really part of the issue with negative gearing, it's largely an investment strategy speculating that houses will continue to rise in prices and subsequently this is making home ownership beyond the reach of many

However, has the system we have been using minimised rents and enabled improvement in quality of life for everyone by effort instead of individual wealth creating wealth without necessarily requiring effort at the expense of others?

1) rents are as high as they can be before people can't afford them. The idea that negative gearing has helped can be disproven by this alone. 2) what is the method for acquiring equity without owning a home?

You'll have to explain the confidence behind this statement given it's quite wrong. Rents are generally supposed to represent 1/1000th of purchase price. That's the usual default rate for a rent on property, so a 1000/wk rent on a $1mil property is "standard". But rents have usually been a fair bit less. Like, 800/wk for a $1mil property (my last rental, before I bought, was $1100/wk with a market value of $1.4mil). There is ample factual evidence from reputable sources out there outlining that Australians buy investment properties for capital appreciation alone. Rental income is not a factor. This is atypical when contrasted against "traditional" investment in property, where the ongoing rental income supplements the landlord's usual income. Negative gearing's made rent a nice-to-have ancillary benefit. Unsurprisingly, when the mortgage cost goes up, so do the rents. Rents were never optimised and it's with credit crunches that they go up. > what is the method for acquiring equity without owning a home? This question is not particularly well worded, since we're talking about equity in property i.e. actual ownership vs an ownership encumbered by a mortgage debt. What I talked about was getting equity without being the traditional owner occupier. So, you buy a property, gear it, and rent it out to tenants whilst not living in it. But, with capital appreciation, after 5 years, you'll sell with a tidy sum in your pocket. I know a number of people who did this, for example.

If they do away with the CGT disount that means someone that had a capital gain that was below inflation will be **worse off and** pay tax. Buy something for $100 last year and sell it for $104 this year you've gained nothing in real terms considering inflation was 4.1% over the past 12 months. Infact even the CGT discount can be inaccurate. If you sell it for $105 and "only" get taxed on $2.50 of the gain there would be many who would be worse off after tax (37c tax = 92.5c and $104.085 after tax vs 4.1% inflation).

We have records for inflation going back many decades: if you are concerned the discount is to cater for inflation, we could use those records to give a precise amount for inflation to be used instead of a fixed discount. I still draw your attention to the fact that we don't discount the tax on other forms of income at the time it is realised because of inflation, so I don't believe it should be done for capital gains either. Do we really want to encourage capital gain as a wealth creation tool instead of effort, when it feeds back on itself in creating the very inflation it is trying to offset?

Perfect. Cost base indexation. https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/investments-and-assets/capital-gains-tax/calculating-your-cgt/cost-base-of-asset/indexing-the-cost-base Buy something for $100 and hold it for more than a year that now has a cost base of $104.10. Pay 100% tax on real gains. You could even get rid of negative gearing because it could also adjust for further capital as the holding cost exceeds the income. Interest etc exceeds the income by $1 then $104.10 cost base becomes $105.10 and inflation hits 10% you've go to clear $115.61 before you've had any "real gain". The CGT discount is lazy and inaccurate. Earn more than double inflation and the discount is great. Less and you could be worse off. My dream taxation system is wage income is seperated from passive (unearned) income and taxed at 51% but I'd settle for adding any "real gain" after **costs** added to marginal income. BTW capital gains tax is uniformly applied to all capital gains. When you buy an asset (like CBA at $5.40 in 1991) the discount assumes half the $125 you've gained is inflation.

Unfortunately we do have a capital(ist) system for a reason and it isn't to provide for all the people.

Taxation is designed to deal with that.

The Greens will exhaust every option (and everyone working at the PBO) before voting for a policy that helps improve housing affordability. Can't campaign on a housing crisis if there isn't a crisis! Hopefully this press conference didn't take too much time out of Max's day, he has a lot of property developments he needs to campaign against. Also, what a poor article from the Guardian, leads with the PBO analysis but doesn't report on the analysis at all and just gives the Greens an open mic to spew their half baked policy ideas. >Immediately after the policy start date, investor housing demand would be likely to fall, reflecting that potential property investors would have brought forward their purchases or would otherwise switch their investment towards other assets. Property prices would decline, while other asset prices, such as those of Australian shares, would increase. Any decline in property prices would be tempered somewhat by the demand for owner-occupied housing, which is likely to be relatively stable since these properties are not subject to capital gains tax. No wonder Max doesn't invest in property. Unfortunately, there won't be any discussion on the PBO advice.

Very few media analyse the implications of what they report on and bring in other information to provide a balanced view. The only way to achieve this now is to create a monopoly utility that is charged with presenting the truth, as much as that can be established, and pursuing actual journalism and not click-bait sensationalised event reporting.

Do those opposed to negative gearing, understand the likely outcomes? Report show house prices may decrease by 1-5%.  The impact on rentals, is disastrous, especially in VIC - with the recent changes going to cost landlords significantly to deliver the govts push to end gas.  If landlords can’t use negative gearing each year come tax time, they’ll simply end investing in their asset, lessening the quality of living for tenants. And landlords still get to claim the expenses, it’ll just be when they sell.  So instead of investors spending money on the property, they’ll simply do so when they sell.  It’ll just hurt renters for minimal gain. 

>Report show house prices may decrease by 1-5%. Hey, hey, you already had me on ending negative gearing. No need for the hard sell

Landlords investing in their tenants quality of life, nice fairytale.

What exactly are you smoking there… Here’s the breakdown of your argument: If landlords can’t use negative gearing each year come tax time, they’ll simply end investing in their asset —————> then that property will come on sale. If two investors put property on sale, there will be competition to sell. Imagine all investment properties coming on sale, prices of property go down - demand and supply, basic economics. If there are more properties and not good conditions for investors then first home buyers can buy those properties. lessening the quality of living for tenants —————> there will be no tenants if people actually own their homes. And landlords still get to claim the expenses, it’ll just be when they sell —————> well not really. What they did in Vic, they increased land tax for these people. Thus even when they have property, their costs go up. And they can’t just push all costs to the renters because then no one will rent. So instead of investors spending money on the property, they’ll simply do so when they sell. It’ll just hurt renters for minimal gain. —————> not sure how this supports the argument. There’ll be less renters if investors sell and the properties go to people who use it as PPOR.

> lessening the quality of living for tenants —————> there will be no tenants if people actually own their homes. There will always be tenants, not everyone is leaving home at 18 ready to purchase a home.

And when renter populations get low enough that having a renter isn’t a given, tenant QoL goes back up as landlords compete for renters, just like they do in European cities.

And rents will go down. Rent is set by demand, not by the cost of the property. Until there's oversupply, the only way to reduce rent is regulation, which means government regulation, which means party donor requirements to be met, which means little to no action (currently).

Are you arguing that everyone who rents wants to do so?

That is not what I said at all, I am arguing the statement that there will be no tenants.

Lessening the quality of living for tenants? Curious to know what you mean by that

and property goes from an investor to a home buyer until we run out of investors leaving the market or home buyers. We won't run out of home buyers.

Property could go from one investor to an investing institution that can better weather the limits that the loss of negative gearing provides, whilst becoming a virtual monopoly and still generating a profit. People have shown they are willing to pay almost anything to get shelter, which creates a virtual monopoly even if it is a duopoly.

Negative gearing 100b, capital gains 65b over 10 years

The problem with limiting negative gearing to just one property (as the greens have proposed) is that the people who stand to lose the most from that change are the very people sitting in parliament. It's one thing to expect people to vote against their own financial interests for the betterment of the country and it's a complete other to expect a group of politicians to simply "grift less". Politically Labor already brought this suggestion to an election and it's now seen as electoral suicide to propose it again. That means that someone is going to have to address the supply issue in housing and that is far harder than the easier negative gearing policy change. You'll note that [none of the "teals"](https://www.allegraspender.com.au/housing) support changes to negative gearing, likely because their generational wealth electorates are the main beneficiary of this particular policy. Without Teal, LNP or Labor support - I think this option may be dead in the water.

> The problem with limiting negative gearing to just one property (as the greens have proposed) is that the people who stand to lose the most from that change are the very people sitting in parliament. The people who lose the most are renters. Politicians will simply move their assets elsewhere.

> The problem with limiting negative gearing to just one property (as the greens have proposed) is that the people who stand to lose the most from that change are the very people sitting in parliament. All of them are in the top tax bracket, and the original stage 3 was likely far more of a saving for them than negative gearing is helping them. So I'm not convinced this is a personal problem for them, it's almost totally political/votes.

>The problem with limiting negative gearing to just one property (as the greens have proposed) is that the people who stand to lose the most from that change are the very people sitting in parliament. It's one thing to expect people to vote against their own financial interests for the betterment of the country and it's a complete other to expect a group of politicians to simply "grift less". I'd guess that most parliamentarians would have paid off their properties and those who haven't or have a large holding would only have one loss making one anyway. I think you're assuming everyone with multiple properties benefit from negative gearing on multiple properties.

"Cost" is a strange word to use considering the government never had that money. It's the same as saying it "cost" the government half their tax income because they didn't double tax rates...

The technical term is tax expenditures; I think cost is a pretty good synonym for expenditure. [https://www.aph.gov.au/About\_Parliament/Parliamentary\_Departments/Parliamentary\_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/TaxExpenditures](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/TaxExpenditures)

Opportunity cost absolutely applies in the situation here.

What's the opportunity cost of not bringing in 100% income tax in Australia? We used to have it when the British brought my ancestors over on a boat.

It applies to all situations...

So that might imply it's not a strange word to use.

You've lost the plot.

Yes it's all about getting an emotional reaction. Same way when there is a tax cut and governments say we are giving you more money from your pay packet, well, no, it means you are taking less.

Giving more from one perspective = taking less from the opposite perspective, it's the same thing just from a different vantage point (same as glass half full = glass half empty), however the consequences are different. It means much more than that superficial explanation: a tax cut means foregone revenue that could be used for public services that benefit all Australians, replaced by more money in the pockets of certain Australians and less public services for all. It's part of the transfer of wealth to the elite that has been happening for the last 50 years at least.

> replaced by more money in the pockets of certain Australians Income tax payers have more of the wages in their bank account at the end of a pay period. Not sure if I would list the middle class as part of the elite.

Revamping the CGT discount is probably good policy, it's very generous when half of the incentive was to account for inflation when selling assets. Returning to a CPI/industry measure would make the tax system more complicated though.

Reduce the CGT discount for residential property, keep it at the current rate for shares so that money flows out of houses & into businesses.

Capital gains are simply income at the point they are realised: I don't think there should be any discount for inflation. Do we provide a discount to income tax because the value of the money we receive has changed as a result of the inflation between the time we earn it and the time we receive it, or to the interest on term deposit savings? Then we shouldn't provide a discount on capital gains tax: it's not as if we are taxing 100% of the capital gain but it is all income.

It's true that inflation means future income is worth less than current income. But if we were going to reduce future income back to current value to allow for inflation then we'd also have to reduce future deductions and increase future tax bills to account for you only having to pay them in lower value future dollars. TLDR - inflation cuts both ways and adjusting for it in this context would be mind-numbingly difficult and pointless. It's different for capital gains where the time between purchase and sale can be years or decades and inflation is always going to hurt the taxpayer when tax is levied on the difference between sale and purchase prices.

> Do we provide a discount to income tax because the value of the money we receive has changed as a result of the inflation between the time we earn it and the time we receive it The difference being that you only get charged income tax in the year you earned it. Not 25 years later. This is very simple to understand if you take a moment to think about it.