Following on the heels of MB’s detailed report on Tuesday arguing (yet again) for one’s principal place of residence to be included in the assets test for the Aged Pension, the Australian Housing & Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has released a report similarly arguing for reforms to make the Aged Pension (AP) more neutral between owner-occupiers and renters:
…removal of the exemption of the family home from the AP assets test has been mooted in the past by commentators across the political spectrum. The most comprehensive set of tax reform proposals in the past decade, the Henry Tax Review, recommended the inclusion of owner-occupied housing in the means test, above a relatively generous threshold (Henry, Harmer et al. 2009)…