Chalmers’ capital gains tax plan worthy of consideration
The winding back of an emblematic form of middle-class welfare for older people would be a symbolically significant move by the political system to address younger people’s housing affordability grievances.
A significant fault line in Australia’s increasingly fragmented society is the unequal distribution of the tax burden across generations.
As the population ages in the coming decades, a smaller proportion of working-age people face paying higher taxes due to the nation’s overreliance on personal income tax as the main source of government revenue. Meanwhile, many asset-rich retirees stand to gain from generous tax concessions on income earned from superannuation and housing wealth.
