An Australian investor has warned the housing market has become the country\u2019s \u201cnational sport\u201d, as new data reveals cuts to controversial tax arrangements could generate $19bn over five years for social housing. <\/p>\n
A report by Everybody’s Home, an eight-year campaign to fix Australia\u2019s housing crisis, found savings from replacing the capital gains tax (CGT) with indexation and ending negative gearing could build between 29,000 to 42,000 public and community homes.<\/p>\n
The funds could also be used to house between 12,000 to 17,000 people experiencing homelessness, or reduce the national median rent by about 0.7-1 per cent.<\/p>\n
In dollar terms, that mean between $230-330 per year in savings for renters. <\/p>\n
Everybody\u2019s Home spokeswoman Maly Azize said next week\u2019s federal budget was a once-in-a-generation chance to \u201cmake housing work for all Australians\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cEnding these tax handouts will help make housing more fair and affordable, but tax reform is only one part of the answer,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cPair it with serious investment in public and community housing and you\u2019ve got a real solution that houses the people who need it most and drives down rents for all renters. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf governments put the savings into public and community homes, the benefits are even greater. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be more homes, fewer people experiencing homelessness, and faster relief for renters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government is widely understood to be considering paring back the CGT.<\/p>\n
The levy is applied after selling items like shares or property, and is part of a person\u2019s annual income tax.<\/p>\n
A discount of 50 per cent is given if someone has held the asset for more than a year and a person\u2019s main residential property is exempt.<\/p>\n
Investor Amanda Isherwood supports changes to the CGT and negative gearing, and said any savings should be invested in more public housing. <\/p>\n
Ms Isherwood currently owns four properties in Victoria and used to have properties which were negatively geared. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs property prices have risen, all of us are paying heaps more capital gains tax and do I want to pay more? No I do not,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, I have a view that as a citizen of this country our taxes should benefit us as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Isherwood said a number of her colleagues in the industry supported an ethical approach to renting.<\/p>\n
She said any windfall from a slashing to the CGT should go into funding more public housing, <\/p>\n
\u201cWe use very crude one-line statistics like what are the interest rates this week and has the housing gone up this week,\u201d Ms Isherwood said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clickbait, it\u2019s gambling. It is our national sport \u2026 It\u2019s like looking at the footy scores every weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how important housing is. It\u2019s not just a matter of keeping out the rain and the cold and having an address for your male to come to. It is the foundation for all of us: it\u2019s our health, our wealth, our happiness, our family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like our national discourse around housing is very flippant and it does treat it like gambling. It\u2019s not a game of two up, it\u2019s about people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lea, a rentvestor with a property in Sydney, also backed changes to the CGT and negative gearing arrangements. <\/p>\n
Aged in her 30s, Lea, who did not give her surname out of privacy concerns, purchased a property, but rents to be closer to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel it personally as a renter whenever the rent is increased and there\u2019s a sense of, I guess, feeling like my living situation is always under threat of a rent increase because it keeps going up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen is it going to go up too far where I have to move further away and have to uproot myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s anxiety around how long can I stay here, especially when I\u2019m starting to feel like I\u2019m at home and starting to get to know my neighbours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lea said she had resisted raising the rent in her property for more than a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, I know that the housing crisis will not be solved by like my own goodwill alone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lea said she had seen the \u201cdevastating damage\u201d done by negative gearing and the GGT.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been good for Australia, it\u2019s been going on for way too long, and it\u2019s made the housing crisis worse,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not sustainable and I think it also incentivises like the wrong behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lea also urged the government to invest in a diverse mix of housing options, including social and community housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand how important it is to have secure and independent living conditions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticularly if you\u2019re escaping violence, you need to be able to have a place that you can call home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian investor has warned the housing market has become the country\u2019s \u201cnational sport\u201d, as new data reveals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[313477,313486,64,63,689,313473,99,44703,313472,41595,313484,313476,313481,313479,313474,164,313478,88374,10920,11152,313487,313480,42086,313482,313471,208915,313475,10928,313485,673,187436,677,23576,19604,7690,670,313483,35747,660],"class_list":["post-647749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-amanda-isherwood","tag-annual-income-tax","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-investor","tag-business","tag-capital-gains-tax","tag-community-homes","tag-community-housing","tag-controversial-tax","tag-controversial-tax-arrangements","tag-controversial-tax-benefits","tag-crude-one-line-statistics","tag-dollar-terms","tag-economy","tag-ending-negative-gearing","tag-federal-budget","tag-housing-crisis","tag-housing-market","tag-independent-living-conditions","tag-investor-tax-scrap","tag-jim-chalmers","tag-lea","tag-maly-azize","tag-nathan-schmidt","tag-national-sport","tag-negative-gearing","tag-negative-gearing-arrangements","tag-new-south-wales","tag-newswire-news","tag-oceania","tag-privacy-concerns","tag-property-prices","tag-public-housing","tag-sydney","tag-tax-handouts","tag-tax-reform","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}