Premier shelves land tax after pressure from property investors
LAND TAX OUT
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has decided to call off a new state land tax designed to gain revenue from investors who own properties interstate.
Ms Palaszczuk’s intervention occurred after she had said co-operation with other states on gaining property holding data was proving too difficult to make workable.
Newsport only this week reported concerns by investors about the new tax, which was given in a recent survey as the main reason why many investors were selling their rental homes at a higher rate than previously.
They feared the rental market – already suffering critical shortages – would be further affected by more rental housing being unavailable because of investors selling off their properties.
The tax would have meant landholders having to, for the first time ever, voluntarily disclose their interstate holdings in other states before being taxed on their Queensland land holdings.
The total values of owners’ landholdings in Queensland and in other states or territories above a $600,000 threshold would have in some cases added tens of thousands of dollars in higher tax bills, each year.
But after weeks of pressure from the investment property market, State Treasurer Cameron Dick’s office has confirmed the land tax will now no longer be introduced.
The Property Investors Council of Australia, and Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) – which recently conducted a survey on the tax – have both welcomed the ditching of the land tax, saying they hope it won’t just be shelved, but permanently abandoned.