Property Council welcomes talk about tax
The Property Council today welcomed renewed interest from the Baird government in abolishing stamp duty as part of broader reform of the property tax based taxes in NSW.
Property Council NSW Executive Director Jane Fitzgerald said today that stamp duty is an inefficient tax that ramps up house prices and worsens housing affordability.
“The Property Council has long been a strong proponent of scrapping stamp duty; Stamp duty is a rollercoaster tax that rises and falls with property markets and the government needs to move to more efficient taxes if they want to reliably budget for services.”
Ms Fitzgerald said the Property Council stood ready to work with the Minister for Finance, Dominic Perrottet, on how to change the tax mix to improve housing supply and housing affordability.
“Stamp duty is a dreadful tax. It decreases labour mobility, is a disincentive to downsizing and mobility and is an increased cost to business,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
Ms Fitzgerald said that whilst there was no doubt that scrapping stamp duty would provide a major productivity boost to the NSW economy a simple swap to land tax, including on the family home, was unlikely to be politically palatable.
“The property industry already pays about $9.8 billion in taxes to the NSW state government, the state’s single largest tax payer,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
“Any tax change that adds to that burden on business and property would be a handbrake on growth and damage confidence and so we need to tread carefully about any major changes and consider all the likely impacts across all property sectors.”
Ms Fitzgerald said the Property Council looks forward to further working with the NSW state government to overhaul the tax system and exploring options for a fairer more transparent system.
Media contact: William Power| M 0429 210 982 | E [email protected]