Existing property investors likely to avoid more tax under possible CGT changes in Chalmers’ May budget

Existing property investors look set to avoid paying more tax under Labor’s mooted changes to CGT in next month’s budget, after Jim Chalmers said he wanted to “make sure that we recognise the decisions that people have taken in the past” and flagged any reforms would not generate “a huge amount of revenue”. The treasurer is widely expected to modify the flat 50% tax discount on profits from the sale of assets held for more than one year, potentially returning to the pre-1999 model where capital gains are adjusted for inflation. With negative gearing rules also in the government’s sights, investors and some experts have called for any changes to tax rules to only apply to new investments. Chalmers said the government was mindful of “transitional issues” around tax changes. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email “Without getting into hypotheticals about policies, what you try and do is to make sure that we recognise the decisions that people have taken in the past,” he told the CommBank View podcast. In response to a question about changes to CGT, Chalmers said “one of the things that I think is not well understood in the speculation is that – even if we went down the path that has been speculated about in those areas that you’ve asked me about – people shouldn’t expect there to be this huge amount of new revenue show up over the course of the next few years in the budget”. …