How would you get rid of negative gearing? You couldn’t do it instantly, all at once. People have made financial decisions based on it. You could say “no negative gearing on properties purchased after 2023”, but then you would still have a huge problem of existing negative gearing. You could phase it out. Limits on how much you can negative gear that reduces every year, going to zero in 20 years.
It’s a funny beast, but I don’t know that getting rid of it is the right call. I don’t think it’d chage anything much:
Ms Jones has a house that she leases out to tenants. The interest on the mortgage and costs on the hosue amount to more than she collects in rent. That difference is tax deductible under the status Quo (Negative Gearing). The law changes, and you can no longer negatively gear property.
Ms Jones starts a new company (TotesLegitLandlord inc) and sells her property to this company that she happens to own. This company leases out a house to tenants. The Interest on the business loan and the costs on the house amount to more than the company collects in revenue. The company makes no profits and pays no tax.
Negative Gearing just makes this whole process easier for everyone. Tax returns are easier and the ATO isn’t reviewing several thousand small businesses that are leasing out properties at a loss. It’s a bogeyman talking point getting us arguing with each other while Billion-dollar companies transfer all their profits off-shore and pay no tax. That’s the scandal that we should be marching in the streets over.
I think if the company makes no profit and pays no tax that’s fine. The problem people have with negative gearing is that it offsets non investment income. So Ms Jones now pays less income tax on her salary.
It offsets personal income by the difference between what the property costs and what it brings in for rent. We need an accountant to chime in here. If Ms. Jones invests money into her business to keep it going (since costs are outweighing income), is that money still income? Or would it be deductible as well?
Either way, that amount isn’t a going to be more than the rental income. And under either model the rent income isn’t taxed until the property is generating more rent than its outgoings. Once that happens, it’s time to buy the next property and go back into the red. It feels like s ponzi scheme, doesn’t it?
I see the problems. I just don’t know how to fix them.
