What were the Proposed Changes to Queensland Land Tax Rules?

The proposed changes would have allowed the Queensland Government to include the value of investment properties owned in other states when working out how much land tax to charge on Queensland properties.

In a case study on a Queensland Government website showing how it would work, the land tax bill for an investor rose from less than $2,000 per year to more than $8,000 for an investor who owned land in Queensland with a taxable value of $745,000 and land in Victoria worth $1,565,000.

When announcing the changes, Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick said the new measures would close a land tax ‘loophole’. Mr Dick said because investors can have portfolios spread across different states, they were able to avoid land tax by owning assets below tax-free thresholds in different states. He has sought to justify the measure by categorising investors in Queensland property as ‘interstate speculators’.

Industry representatives has termed the measures as outrageous and a ‘cash grab’ by a state government with a budget problem.

Why Were The Changes Shelved?

The Queensland Government doesn’t have access to property ownership records from the other states. So, enforcing the new tax would have required other states to hand that information over – but state leaders resisted, New South Wales Premier, Dominic Perrottet, was particularly vocal about his objection.

Mr Perrottet was quoted as saying: “This is a tax implemented by a state that impacts the residents of NSW. It’s wrong, and we’re not going to comply with it. This is poor financial management by a Labor state government impacting the residents of NSW. No one is safe across the country from labor’s taxing. They’ve gotten over taxing their own residents and are now trying to tax everybody else across Australia.”

After meeting with state leaders to “get to the bottom” of their concerns, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has had no choice but to dump the controversial changes, She conceded that implementing the new land tax relied on the goodwill of other states, adding “if we can’t get that additional information, I will put that aside”.