More effort than it’s worth? Experts question land tax

Property experts have questioned how Queensland intends to enforce a land tax, saying workload costs could end up outweighing the predicted land tax revenue.

Property experts say they are unsure exactly how the government plans to sift through the huge amounts of public data to identify interstate landholders, saying workload costs could end up outweighing the predicted land tax revenue.

REIQ chief operating officer Dean Milton said he doubted the current team of nine people working on the land tax reform had the capacity to manually cross reference all interstate property data.

“What’s their identifier for a rental property from a title search? I’d assume they have to compare it to some other form of data such as real estate listings or ATO data,” Mr Milton said.

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“They’ve put on nine extra people to do this and it sounds like nine is not suitable to do that.

“Getting the information from other governments would be the most ideal and cheapest way to deal with it.

“The cost of compliance here will outweigh revenue, so we hope they have a better way than the manual approach.”

A Queensland Revenue Office (QRO) spokesperson told The Courier-Mail work was carried out by a total of 110 compliance staff.

“QRO undertakes a range of audit and investigation activities across all revenue that it administers, including land tax,” they said.

“This work is carried out by approximately 110 staff and is allocated across revenue products, based on risk management principles.”

Mr Milton said it was disappointing that the REIQ was only told about the proposed legislation change mere hours before it entered parliament last December and that the industry body would be lobbying to have the new laws repealed.

“We were called the night before to tell us this was happening, so we got no heads-up,” he said.

“There were 10 days given for submissions and that was not adequate, there was no consultation with tax experts and we know accountants and lawyers are scratching their heads - there’s a lot of confusion about this.

“We will be lobbying to get this land tax appealed, along with other leading economists and industry experts.”

Meanwhile Propertology head of research Simon Pressley said the policy was “ludicrous” and “heavily relied” on Australian land owners self-reporting.

Propertyology head of market research Simon Pressley.

He said the administration costs to implement the “tax grab” would be a waste of taxpayer money.

“It is inevitable that this greedy tax grab gets defended in the High Court,” he said.

“Administering this ludicrous policy relies heavily on land owners who live all over Australia to self-report the details of land interests.

“One can just imagine how much valuable taxpayer revenue gets wasted on antiquated and grossly inefficient government administration.”

Property Council of Australia Queensland executive director Jen Williams

Jen Williams, Queensland executive director from the Property Council of Australia said the land tax still had unknown “practical implications” and heavily counteracted the governments’ commitment to fix the housing crisis.

“Particularly given its likely impact on the rental market,” Ms Williams said.

“The practical implications and costs associated with the interstate land tax model are yet to be understood.

“Pushing ahead with this change will jeopardise the foundations the government has laid in recent weeks to ensure that Queensland is a first mover in ensuring safe, affordable and fit-for-purpose housing.”