Property investors pull out of Qld ahead of land tax change
Confused property investors are already pulling out Queensland due to controversial land tax changes, despite claims to the contrary from the state government.
QLD Politics
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Confused property investors are already pulling out of the state due to controversial land tax changes, real estate bodies have warned, despite claims from the state government to the contrary.
The land tax shake-up, to kick in mid next year, will for the first time anywhere in the country use the value of interstate property to calculate the rate people will be slugged for their Queensland portfolio.
A state Labor backbencher, in a letter to a constituent about the new land tax, said there “was no evidence this is acting as a disincentive to Queensland investors” and that Treasury did not believe the change would “adversely affect the overall supply of housing in Queensland”.
“(This is because) only a small proportion of residential landlords will be impacted,” Lytton MP Joan Pease noted in the letter.
The claims in the letter have sparked calls from the opposition Treasury spokesman David Janetzki for Treasurer Cameron Dick to immediately release “modelling and analysis” that back up the comments.
“The Treasurer has made significant claims about the operation of the tax and he must provide the basis for them,” he said.
REIQ chief executive Antonia Mercorella said she “challenged” claims made by the state government, revealing she had received “a barrage of emails” and phone calls from people saying they intend to sell or halt moves to invest in Queensland.
She said those who did not sell up would then pass on the impact of the tax to the renters in those properties.
Haesley Cush, of Living Here Cush Partners and co-principal of Ray White New Farm, said a number of landlords had reached out saying they would likely sell to avoid the tax.
Treasurer Cameron Dick was travelling on Sunday as part of a trade mission and the state government pointed to previous comments, which included a staunch guarantee that rents would not go up due to the land tax changes.
During budget estimates, he said the “object of the reform” was so families in Queensland trying to get into the housing market “no longer face unfair competition from speculators in Sydney who are flipping properties around the country at a furious rate”.
Ms Mercorella said it was likely no one truly understood the depth of the impact of the change.
“We’ve even got banks, commercial agents and accountants trying to understand how it will work,” she said.
Queensland-based renters’ agent Michael Turner, who also has a property portfolio of eight investments, said he would be putting his Victorian property on the market due to the new changes.
“I don’t think it’s good form for one state government to slug you for properties you have in another jurisdiction,” he said.
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