A briefing document, Treasury provided to the Turnbull government at least three months ago, reveals the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have been lying about negative gearing up to and during the election campaign. The document was recently obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information.
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Contrary to Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison’s assertions that Australians on average earnings and “mum and dad” investors are the overwhelming beneficiaries of negative gearing, the FOI document clearly enunciates that more than half of negative gearing tax benefits are reaped by the highest twenty per cent of income earners.
Further, the document says the lowest twenty per cent of income earners receive only five per cent of the negative gearing tax benefits.
To continue to defend negative gearing as it stands and not change the tax system to reflect a fairer way ahead, Turnbull and Morrison are overwhelmingly pandering to wealthy property developers and opportunistic investors.
They could remove these wasteful and discreditable tax incentives and spend the money on urgent needs currently so evident in education and health.
Patrick Lee, Port Macquarie