While I'm sure there are a few people that exploit the benefits of negative gearing ( i.e. the holiday home ) , as is done with many other tax regimes , I'm pretty confident that the vast majority are doing it for purely long term investment reasons.
What about the tax benefits of salary sacrificing etc into super ? That could be construed as middle class welfare as well depending on your perspective .
As someone posted on another thread , the govt isn't in the business of providing housing any more ( defence housing for example ) so it has to come from somewhere . Given that we don't build enough houses ( for a variety of reasons ) in Australia , imagine how many fewer would be built if there was less incentive.
Following on from that , if there were less houses built , apart from less jobs in the building game what would happen to rent ?
Maybe Australia is transiting to a situation where people in the big cities are lifetime renters the same as in places such as New York , Paris , London etc ?
