Prosper Australia today declared its disappointment at the state budget inaction on housing and tax reform.
“The Housing Statement declared a goal of 800,000 new homes over the next decade, yet this budget contains only minor announcements on an increased construction for public housing,” said spokesperson Rayna Fahey.
“We need dollars for dwellings, not developers.”
“If this government wants to take meaningful action on housing affordability, it needs to put an end to the middle-class welfare subsidies which ultimately end up in the pockets of developers and vendors.”
“We call for an end to the costly Land Duty Transfer concessions for First Home Buyers. This government should instead invest directly in the construction of social housing. This investment would greatly reduce the pressure faced by low-middle income earners in the rental market.”
“There is no evidence that this Stamp Duty concession is making any meaningful impact on prices. Instead the cost to Victorians is blowing out an extra $200M a year compared to previous forecasts.”
Prosper Australia called on the State Government to invest in the competitiveness of Victorian business by shifting taxes away from the productive sector and onto land tax.
“Taxing payroll is fundamentally the wrong approach. We should be increasing taxes on property to better make use of our most efficient tax base, and we should be decreasing taxes on business investment and employment instead.”
“Payroll taxes are forecast to blow out to $10B by 2027/28. We should not be punishing Victorian businesses for employing people. Our research shows if Victoria taxed land like the ACT, we’d have $6.7bn more revenue and wouldn’t need to be taxing payroll.”
Key facts:
- If Victoria taxed land and rezoning to the same level as the ACT, we would see an increase in government revenue of $6,760M (Buying better income taxes with better land taxes, 2024, Prosper Australia).
- Land Duty Transfer concessions for First Home Buyers are forecast to cost the state $8.5B, in contrast to the $5.3B total project costs for the Big Housing Build.
- 58,459 families are on the public housing waiting list as of March 2024.
