NSW: Opposition to introduce land tax for large home blocks

AAP General News (Australia)
02-12-1999
NSW: Opposition to introduce land tax for large home blocks

By Catharine Munro, State Political Correspondent

SYDNEY, Feb 12 AAP - The New South Wales opposition plans to tax homes on large home blocks
measuring more than 2,100 square metres if it wins power in March.

The promise contradicts the coalition's repeated claims it would not tax the family home.

The coalition admitted it would revive the tax for big blocks, abolished by the ALP in
1997, but said it was not a tax on the home.

"There won't be a tax on the family home," opposition legal affairs spokesman John
Hannaford insisted today.

Mr Hannaford denied the coalition would shift land tax from harbourside homes to areas such
as small towns and fringe suburbs.

He said the tax had existed since 1974 for home-land in excess of 2,100 square metres to
prevent rorts of land tax.

"That's been a framework of the land tax legislation now for years, it was changed by the
Carr government, we intend to return to that regime."

He repeated the coalition's promise to scrap Labor's tax on homes with land valued at more
than $1 million.

According to departmental figures, the luxury home tax resulted in over 1,000 homes in the
upmarket eastern suburbs being taxed in 1999.

In 1997, the ALP announced the new tax and abolished the old, introduced in 1974, on home
land over 2,100 square metres.

This year there are 2,473 houses which have values over $1.116 million, adding up to $25
million in tax.

Under the coalition in 1994, 1,731 homes were taxed, earning the government $3.2 million.

The tax affected homes in less up-market areas such as Campbelltown and Liverpool.

NSW Treasurer Michael Egan said the old tax had been imposed on family homes with a land
value as low as $350,000.

"It is insulting to people who want to live on an acre or two in an outer suburban area or
in the country to suggest they are rorters," Mr Egan said.

AAP cm/jd/cjh

KEYWORD: POLLNSW LAND

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