ACT right to scrap another tax on renters

Responding to ACT’s plan to re-abolish loss ring-fencing for rental properties, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Austin Ellingham-Banks said:

“In 2017, Treasury and Inland Revenue told Labour ministers in black and white that ring-fencing could push up rents and hit low-income renters hardest. Chris Hipkins sat around the Cabinet table as Labour ignored that advice and pressed ahead anyway.”

“Ring-fencing took effect in April 2019. Fast forward four years, MBIE data shows the average rent on a new tenancy rose by $100 a week. That is $5,200 a year taken from exactly the families officials warned would be hit hardest.”

“We’ve already seen what happens when these taxes on renters are sent to the scrap-heap. After the Government restored interest deductibility for residential landlords, rent growth slowed from 4.8 percent to just 0.5 percent. That’s the slowest rate of rent increases in 25 years.”

“While some politicians are playing populism - pushing Latin American-style price controls and asset seizures - this is a clear-eyed, evidence-based way to tackle the cost of living. Real relief starts by cutting the costs to provide things people can’t do without, like a place to call home.”