Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Bernie Fraser supports paring back the capital gains tax discount for investment properties, while former Liberal prime minister John Howard and treasurer Peter Costello say it would hurt the aspirational middle class and be used as cover to pay for Labor’s uncontrolled spending.
The Albanese government is considering replacing the 50 per cent discount for capital gains with a less generous concession to address concerns about intergenerational inequity and housing affordability, The Australian Financial Review revealed this week.
Peter Costello was the federal treasurer when the government introduced the capital gains tax discount. Eamon Gallagher
Howard said this would not be tax reform. “It would be yet another tax slug by the Albanese government which lazily leans on the [Australian Taxation Office] to provide extra revenue,” he told AFR Weekend. “It would hurt the aspirational middle class.”
The Howard-Costello Coalition government introduced the CGT discount in 1999 during its second term in office.
Costello, the nation’s longest-serving treasurer, said Labor was not interested in serious tax reform.
After 25 years, what is driving the higher capital gains tax agenda is not a wish to improve the tax system but an attempt to cover for out of control spending,” he said.
“Increasing capital gains tax rates combined with high marginal tax rates will make Australia quite uncompetitive in the region and will just be another nail in the dismal productivity performance of the Australian economy.”
While in opposition in 2019, Labor under then-leader Bill Shorten proposed reducing the discount to 25 per cent, as well as curtailing negative gearing, franking credits and increasing taxes on trusts. But since Labor lost that year’s election the party had not seriously revisited the policy until now, as it prepares the May budget.
Bernie Fraser, the only Australian to have served as both Treasury secretary and RBA governor, said he had always opposed the 50 per cent discount on capital gains.
“From day one, I’ve argued against the bloody thing,” said Fraser, who led the RBA during the Hawke-Keating era.
“I was always disappointed when Labor tried to do something about it [in 2019], there was a big reaction in the polls. Unfortunately, rather than argue the case, they threw the towel in altogether. One has to be more persistent and determined in making the case. But they gave up straight away.”
Fraser proposed removing any capital gains tax discount for investment properties, but was more open to a discount for other assets such as shares.
“Housing should primarily be for living in and to raise a family, rather than for wealthy investors,” he said. “It’s a pity that all this money has gone into capital gains concessions to people who don’t really need it.”
Bernie Fraser has proposed removing any capital gains tax discount for investment properties. Alex Ellinghausen
Costello said the current 50 per cent discount still left investors facing a relatively high tax rate compared to overseas.
“New Zealand’s capital gains tax is zero, Singapore’s is zero and the top rate of American capital gains tax is 20 per cent,” Costello said. The maximum capital gains tax rate in Australia is effectively 23.5 per cent for assets held longer than 12 months and sold by high earners.
In an appeal to Labor’s support base, Costello also warned eradicating concessions could hurt superannuation funds, which are currently eligible for a one-third discount under the reforms he introduced – meaning funds currently pay a capital gains tax rate of 10 per cent, instead of 15 per cent.
“There is no way you could quarantine superannuation funds from tax increases that everyone else gets,” Costello said.
But the Grattan Institute’s Brendan Coates said superannuation funds were already taxed separately to individual income earners.
“It’s already a separate income tax system for super funds. Earnings are taxed at the fund level, rather than the hands of the individual,” he said, adding that the government could keep the discount for superannuation funds at 33 per cent while reducing it for individual investors.
“There’s a good case of having a lower tax rate on [capital gains] than what there is on ordinary income. Some discount is justified. It’s just that the 50 per cent has been too generous.”
Outlook Economics director Peter Downes, who worked at Treasury when the discount was introduced in 1999, said the government needed to consider the impact on renters of any change to the CGT regime.
“If you increase a tax on property investors, they withdraw investment from the property market, which means there are fewer properties to rent and rents go up,” Downes said.
“With rents higher, there are more owner occupiers looking to buy because servicing a mortgage looks more attractive than paying a rent.”
The Financial Review reported on Friday that one option under consideration by Labor was returning to the Keating era by replacing the 50 per cent capital gains discount for investors with a less generous deduction based on the cumulative increase in inflation over the life of an asset.
Costello said the pre-1999 system of indexing the cost base of assets to inflation each year was very complex and the 50 per cent discount was far simpler for taxpayers to calculate.
Government sources said nothing had been settled yet, let alone taken to cabinet.
Other options include a flat rate deduction lower than 50 per cent, potentially only applying the less generous arrangements to investment properties given younger voters’ concerns about housing affordability and missing out at auctions to landlords.
“Most people who are rich, they take money in capital gains and don’t pay 50 per cent. The maximum rate someone pays is 23 per cent when they transfer the money into capital,” he said. “How fair is that?”
Kelty did not call for a tax increase in capital gains, but said big income tax cuts for working-age people should be provided but not extended to wealthier people with assets such as investment properties, shares and trusts.
A Senate committee is examining the capital gains tax discount and is due to finalise its report by March 17.
The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated, in analysis finalised last month but released on Thursday, that the discount was worth about $247 billion in lost revenue to the budget over 10 years, or about $20 billion every year.
Economists recommend reducing the discount to 25 or 33 per cent, or to index asset prices to inflation for the purpose of calculating one’s tax liability.
The PBO’s estimate does not consider when investors target other assets in response to a lower discount.
If assets like property which promise large capital gains were taxed more, investors could shift funds to other assets such as bonds or term deposits. The government would lose capital gains tax revenue, but that would be partially offset by more tax on other forms on income, such as interest.
The Grattan Institute estimated that dropping the discount to 25 per cent, without any grandfathering for investors who had already purchased assets such as property or shares, would cost around $6.5 billion each year (which includes the effect of switching assets).
Teal independent MP Allegra Spender welcomed the government’s consideration of reform to the discount, but said it should be a part of a broader package of tax reform that is not a mere revenue raising drive.
“Any tax measures the Government takes should be revenue neutral and put money back in the pockets of people trying to get ahead,” she said.
