The tax tweak that could deliver 130,000 new homes
A targeted change to capital gains tax could boost housing supply, level the playing field for buyers and help the government hit its ambitious housing targets.
When the ABC published Treasury’s leaked advice that Australia’s 1.2 million home target by 2030 won’t be met, few housing market observers were surprised.
Every month, we’re falling thousands of dwellings short of our supply goals. While Australia needs around 220,000 or so new dwellings to come online each year, only about two-thirds of that is actually being delivered.
Treasury’s advice was grim, but it came with a caveat: the predicted shortfall will occur under existing policy settings.
Its gloomy forecast likely didn’t account for the reformist appetite that has recently gripped the Albanese Government — an appetite which, if directed at the tax treatment of housing that is limiting new supply, could help get Australia’s housing target back on track.
