Coalition CGT cut back on!

Advertisement

It’s government by chaos, via the AFR:

Despite work being underway on policy options ahead of the May budget, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann moved to kill off any change.

…But his view is not shared by all his colleagues.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was more circumspect, saying only that the government has no plans to adopt Labor’s policy, which has never been suggested.

Liberal MP John Alexander repeated his call that both negative gearing and CGT needed to be looked at.

“We need to control investor-driven demand,” he said.

Treasurer Scott Morrison was not asked about CGT during a morning radio interview but he did repeat his warning taxes would have to rise if the Senate blocked budget savings worth $13.2 billion.

The Property Council of Australia, which fought Labor’s policy before the last election, moved quickly to kill off any change.

But, but, but you support it! In July last year the PCA agreed that the CGT discount should be cut:

“We have accepted that the 50 per cent discount in a low inflationary environment is significant,” the Property Council’s head of policy and housing Glenn Byres said. “We have also argued that there is also scope to increase the qualifying period to two years.”

The lobby group opposes Labor’s negative gearing proposal, but before the election backed a cut in the CGT discount to 40 per cent from the current 50 per cent and still holds that view…

On the Labor figures, the Property Council’s proposed reduction would equate to government saving of $1.72 billion in 2019.

Let’s just cut out the middle men and make the PCA prime minister.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.