The solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes, says the party leader
The Labour government is facing another accusation that it is attempting to introduce some form of capital gains tax.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern disputed comments made by Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson that was she “trying to bring in a capital gains tax through the back door.”
“This idea that somehow I am trying to bring in a capital gains tax through the back door, of course, I refute,” said Ardern. “Three attempts had been made to bring in a capital gains tax, and we could not get New Zealanders on board.”
Read more: Westpac economist expects wealth tax within the next decade
However, ACT New Zealand party leader David Seymour said that any plan to extend the bright-line test is akin to introducing a capital gains tax “by stealth.”
Seymour said that finance minister Grant Robertson had “asked Treasury to investigate a range of tax options, including extending the bright-line test beyond five years.”
The bright-line test, which levies a tax on residential property sellers have owned for less than five years, was first introduced by a National government in 2015. Labour extended the original two years to five in 2018.
“Labour’s plan to introduce a capital gains tax by stealth vindicates ACT’s opposition to the bright-line test,” said Seymour.
Seymour added that he predicted this in 2015, when he called the bright-line test an “acorn of a capital gains tax. It is a measure that will grow from two years, to five, to 10, to 15 years.”
“The solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes – Labour’s new taxes will just change who’s in the queue to buy the existing ones,” said Seymour. “Labour couldn’t get a capital gains tax past New Zealanders, so it’s trying to bring one in through the back door. The problem is, like the five-year bright-line test, another extension won’t work.”
