[Jarred Santos]

Hello, YourLifeChoicers!

A message from one of our dear readers:

Much has been said about the housing crisis and its causes in YourLifeChoices, but one issue that is rarely discussed is the impact of stamp duty.

We recently decided to downsize and bought a small house on the Central Coast for $970,000—a price we thought was reasonable until the stamp duty kicked in. This pushed the total cost close to $1 million! Such a tax is outrageous. For young people, having to come up with that kind of money on top of what they’ve budgeted for is punishing.

Yes, I understand that the government needs revenue, but when they claim to care about housing affordability, they reveal their true colours—whether their party colour is blue or red.

We’re lucky, I suppose. Now, in our late 70s, we finally have enough money to buy a smaller house to enable us to downsize from the one we paid off and lived in for 40 years, to move to the coast to be near our son and three grandchildren. My wife and I worked together for 45 years, and during that time, we built a small business, paid all the requisite licenses and taxes, and employed quite a few people. We went broke at one point but still faced outstanding tax bills. We scrimped and saved, lived on specials, and hunted for bargains—always using second-hand cars and trucks.

Through all of this, we managed to save enough money to hold onto both houses while we navigate our move. We’ve also managed to help our son hang onto his family home, they were hard hit by stamp duty when they bought their house. These are luxuries that we could only afford because we were able to save, but the ATO doesn’t reward us for our diligence. Instead of seeing us as being self-sufficient and not draining the public purse, it sees us as a bigger taxation target.

As I said, we’ve been fortunate to do these things later in life. How much harder will it be in the future for young families to pay off a house and eventually downsize to be near their kids? Almost impossible, I would say.

The real concern is that young people today will never be able to earn enough on salaries alone to afford a good home and raise a family. That dream is all but gone. Instead, they’ll be stuck renting, which will drain any spare money they might have otherwise saved for the future.

Why are we so heavily taxed in this country? I’d love to read something in YourLifeChoices about stamp duty costs in other countries—I suspect we’d top the list as one of the most expensive in the world.

David F.

What are your thoughts on David’s message? Do you share his concerns that young Australians’ dream of having a good home and raising family is ‘all but gone’ with the way things are? Let’s get the conversation going below.

[Robert55]

We are so heavily taxed because we are a large country with a small population. EG: The same roads in other countries service many times the population we have here. So on a per capita basis we have to pay much more per kilometer each.

[Rod63]

Stamp duty has nothing to do with the ATO. It is a state tax.

[annie]

Maybe if we have a hung parliament and the Independents/Teals hold the balance, not greens, as they are almost as bad as the liberals, in my book. The teals will put the voter first and they can hold Labor to taxing big corporations what is due this country. Imagine how rich we would be. Pretty sure first home buyers in NSW can swap stamp duty for land tax charges. Don’t quote me on that but sure I read something about it. Main thing is that top end of town and foreign company/corporations pay their taxes. Lets stop subsidising miners as well

[Author]

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