It’s done. Both houses of parliament have passed the government’s tax legislation this week.
The Greens came to the table, the government got its package through, and the headline reforms — negative gearing and capital gains tax — are now law. But the detail matters more than the headline. And some of it doesn’t look like good policy at all.
What Passed, Broadly As Expected
The core reforms landed close to what was flagged at Budget time.
- The CGT discount is replaced from 1 July 2027 with indexation and a minimum effective tax rate of 30%
- Negative gearing will no longer be available unless the property is a newly constructed dwelling
- Existing arrangements are protected under transitional rules running through to 1 July 2027
- One carve-out: investors in eligible new-build housing retain access to the current 50% CGT discount
That last point matters. It’s the government’s way of keeping incentives pointed at new supply, while pulling them away from existing housing stock.
Where the Numbers Stop Making Sense
Here’s the problem. A 30% minimum tax rate sounds like a measure aimed at high earners. It isn’t, necessarily.
Run the numbers on someone earning $190,000 a year, and their average tax rate sits at around 29.86%. That’s close to where the top marginal bracket kicks in. So a 30% floor on capital gains doesn’t just catch high earners, it catches retirees on modest incomes who’ve held an asset for decades and are selling it once.
A retiree earning $20,000 to $30,000 a year, selling a long-held investment property as a one-off event, can end up paying a higher effective rate on that gain than their income would otherwise attract. That’s not closing a loophole. That’s a design flaw.
The Surprise Nobody Saw Coming
The bigger shock landed somewhere off the original agenda entirely. As part of the Greens’ negotiated support, self-managed super funds can no longer borrow to purchase residential property.
This wasn’t flagged. It wasn’t part of the Budget conversation. It appeared in the final package, and for SMSF trustees who were partway through a purchase, the timeline is brutal: contracts need to be signed within 30 days for existing arrangements to be protected.
Whatever your view on gearing inside super, telling trustees what they can and can’t invest in in their own fund, with effectively no notice, is a serious overreach. We’ll cover the broader implications of this one separately, because it deserves its own conversation.
There’s a Quiet Sting in the Detail Too
One more change is worth knowing about, even though it sounds minor. Where a negatively geared property is jointly owned and one owner dies, the property’s grandfathered status is now lost — the same as if the relationship had ended.
That means a surviving spouse, already dealing with the loss of a partner, can also lose the tax treatment they’d planned their finances around. It’s the kind of detail that doesn’t make headlines but matters enormously to the people it affects.
What Else Made It Through
Some smaller, more straightforward measures passed alongside the big-ticket items:
- A $1,000 standard deduction, simplifying tax returns for people with little to claim
- A $250 tax offset aimed at working Australians
- The lowest tax bracket reducing from 16% to 15% from 1 July, then to 14% from 1 July 2027
The pattern here is consistent — future tax relief is being targeted at people earning income through work, rather than spread as a broad-based cut.
The Takeaway
Tax reform of this size always produces a mix of intended outcomes and unintended consequences. This package has both.
If you hold property under the current negative gearing rules, your existing arrangement is protected — for now. If you’re planning a sale, a purchase, or you’re navigating an SMSF strategy involving property, the worst thing you can do is act on what you’ve heard rather than what actually applies to you.
Get the detail right before you make a decision. That’s not optional anymore — it’s essential.
To find out how we can help see our Tax Advisory.