Jim Chalmers grilled by Sunrise’s David Koch over capital gains tax on family home after super tweak

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has refused to rule out introducing a capital gains tax on the family home after repeated questioning over breakfast on television.

Sunrise host David Koch had repeatedly asked Dr. Chalmers to kill the idea while the Treasurer made the media rounds trying to sell a broken election promise on retirement.

‘Not contemplating?’ That’s a weasel word,’ she said.

In a harrowing interview, Dr. Chalmers couldn’t completely rule out a capital gains tax on someone’s principal place of residence.

‘Not intentionally. I’m trying to be honest with his viewers,” the treasurer told the Seven Network.

Koch was outraged.

‘Can you say yes and you absolutely guarantee that there will never be any changes to the capital gains tax exemption on our family home? Can you say yes?

Dr. Chalmers again refused to rule it out.

“I can tell your viewers that we haven’t been focused on that, it’s not something that we’ve been contemplating,” he said.

Australians have been exempt from paying capital gains tax on their principal place of residence, or family home, since it was introduced by Bob Hawke’s Labor government on 20 September 1985.

That means capital gains tax is only paid on investment properties, which are typically bought so they can be rented out to pay a mortgage, with taxable losses.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Tuesday that the richest 0.5% of people in Australia would see their super-contribution tax rate double to 30%, up from 15% on July 1, 2025.

The coalition government of former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard introduced a 50 per cent tax credit on capital gains in September 1999.

Labor lost the 2019 election when former opposition leader Bill Shorten campaigned to halve the capital gains tax discount to 25 percent.

His Labor successor, Anthony Albanese, has ruled out halving the capital gains tax discount and removing negative leverage tax breaks for future investment property purchases.

But Albanese, as prime minister, is now accused of breaking another election promise after ruling out changes to retirement on May 2, 2022, just three weeks before he won the election as opposition leader.

“We have said that we do not intend to make any big changes,” he told a Sky News reporter at a news conference.

“One of the things we’re doing in this campaign is making all of our policies clear, we’re posting them for everyone to see.”

But the prime minister announced on Tuesday that the richest 0.5 percent of people in Australia would see their super-contribution tax rate double to 30 percent, up from 15 percent on July 1, 2025.

The prime minister announced on Tuesday that the richest 0.5 percent of people in Australia would see their super-contribution tax rate double to 30 percent, up from 15 percent on July 1, 2025.

Mr Albanese stressed that the favorable 15 per cent tax rate would continue to apply for the 99.5 per cent of Australians with less than $3 million in retirement savings.

One of Koch’s Seven colleagues, Canberra political editor Mark Riley, suggested Tuesday’s announcement, to save the budget $2bn a year, amounted to a broken election promise on retirement while addressing a press conference in Canberra.

“You had no intention of changing it, you had no intention of major changes,” Riley said.

‘What absolute commitment can you give to the 99.5 per cent of Australians who won’t be affected by this change that you won’t mess with their super?’

Albanese suggested that the 80,000 Australians who will pay the most in tax for their super were particularly wealthy.

The prime minister pointed to figures showing 17 Australians had more than $100 million in their retirement savings accounts, including a mystery person who had more than $400 million in their retirement savings accounts.

The favorable 15 percent tax rate for extraordinary contributions debuted in 2006 under a coalition government and is well below the marginal income tax rate of 45 percent for those earning more than $180,000.