Brumby Delivers Free Lunch
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008The front cover of today’s Herald Sun has a huge photo of Horse Stud owner Steve Spiteri (looking hard done by!) with a caption: ‘Thanks Premier: Steve Hits Paydirt’. Yesterday’s announcement to rezone all land residential within Melbourne’s 2030 boundary has made landowners, typically land bankers and the occasional farmer on the edge of the sprawl, rich overnight. Mr Spiteri bought his property for $375,000 twelve years ago and with the new zoning is now estimated to be worth $11 million dollars.
How much money will Spiteri make when he sells the property? Lets give him a million dollars for council rates, real estate commissions and to cover the next few years Land Tax (about $330,000 p.a). If we assume he pays capital gains tax at 30%, he will take home over $7 million dollars. This equates to more than 122 years income for the average wage earner.
That’s as if he’s earnt $11,217 per week for the last 12 years. Staggering!
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