Senate: Capital Gains Tax Favors Investors in Housing

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : In its findings, the Senate committee said the design of the discount "has the potential to distort the allocation of investment across the economy". There was "evidence that existing housing stock makes up a substantial share of capital gains that benefit from the capital gains tax discount," the findings said.
54% : The tax concession reduces the capital gain for tax purposes on an asset by 50%, provided it has been held for at least a year.
54% : "The benefits of the capital gains tax discount are also unequally distributed, with implications for income and wealth inequality and intergenerational inequality".
54% : " The Labor senators in additional comments said any future tax reforms should be guided by the principles agreed at last year's economic roundtable.
53% : Chalmers, who will deliver a major pre-budget speech on Thursday, is known to be pushing to reduce the discount, among other tax reforms.
51% : I'll give my colleagues a whole bunch of options when it comes to tax reform," he said on Sky.
50% : Author * Michelle Grattan Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The majority report of the inquiry into the operation of the capital gains tax discount, tabled Tuesday, concluded that while various factors influenced housing markets, there was evidence the discount, combined with negative gearing, had "skewed the ownership of housing away from owner-occupiers and towards investors".
50% : The committee said it had consistently heard that the current design of the discount "can distort decision making and incentivise tax planning".
44% : " McKim opposed grandfathering changes, saying "to ensure a significant release of housing is made available for renters to buy, hard limits and a phase out of existing arrangements must be part of any negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms".
36% : In their dissenting report, the Liberal senators said the "idea that Australia's housing woes could be solved by one tax tweak is as shallow as it is cruel".

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.