How can young Australians afford a home if we tax their risk-taking?
While tech has been one of the loudest voices, the changes to CGT in this Federal Budget are much bigger than tech. They break the risk-to-reward ratio for all small business owners, entrepreneurs, and young Australians.
Labor claims they want to make property more affordable for young people. How exactly are young people supposed to save enough money for a deposit on a house if investments like shares are now effectively taxed twice as much, and the long term reward for founding a startup or a small business is halved, while the risk and effort remains exactly the same?
Young Australians simply can’t rely on cash savings alone while inflation chips away at their purchasing power. They take risks to get ahead: investing in shares using apps like Sharesies, Stake, or Raiz, working for early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or starting their own business.
Young people take risks, to grow their wealth, to afford a home.
If the goal of this policy is to curb property speculation, target investment properties. Treating a startup, a small business, and shares the exact same way as a property portfolio is an economic own-goal. Property speculation doesn’t really create jobs, invent technologies, or build new export industries.
If the government wants to adjust tax settings to free up housing stock, fine. Isolate the housing market. But by applying a blanket penalty across all asset classes, we’re starving our future economy of productive capital just to try and fix a real estate issue.
Australia needs to transition from a “lucky country” to an “entrepreneurial country” if we want to build national resilience, compete on the global stage, and diversify our exports beyond mining and natural gas.
These tax changes do not incentivize any of that.