14 July 2011

Uncertain and confused Zed on change of use again.

| johnboy
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Zed “The Mouth of Catherine Carter” Seselja has sallied forth to rail against the Government taxing the windfall profits of redeveloping houses into apartments.

He’s claiming uncertainty and confusion after the Greens amended the legislation at the last minute. But despite that he’s put together a rather spiffy graph:

When the remission rate is scaled back to 25 per cent, the tax per unit will be;

screenshot of table

This tax will have a significant impact on the industry and put a great deal of pressure on housing affordability and Canberrans looking to rent a home.

We have already seen a rush of development applications come in to try and beat the changes – 113 development applications were lodged to ACTPLA in June this year compared to 31 in 2010. This is not producing certainty for industry nor the steady roll-out of supply.

This massive tax also goes completely against the policy of increasing density in our town centres, and encouraging greater scope for public transport as the taxes rise as you get closer to these major town centres.

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Mr Lubberlubber6:05 pm 14 Jul 11

So when do I sell my property in a development area to a developer? I would want to make sure it is when the charge is lowest so I get more of the final land cost in my pocket rather than the Government. The charge is adjustable in all kinds of different scenarios and property owners really have no certainty about what is happening with it from one year to the next. They have already said that they are going to be continually changing it.

‘tax’ – check
‘massive’ – check
But where is ‘Canberra families’?

Anyway, my understanding is that the change of use charge can be used specifically to encourage development in appropriate areas, because it is adjustable around certain parameters. Ie, it gets waived for transport corridors, for environmentally friendly developments etc.

Hence, spiffy graph is a dud.

Hope that clears up the uncertainty. I guess zed will no longer say that the change of use charge discourages density etc?

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