Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has thrown himself into fighting the reduction of the capital gains tax discount in Labor’s budget, as well as the abolition of negative gearing on existing properties. But as treasurer Jim Chalmers recently pointed out in parliament, quoting from Wilson’s 2020 book The New Social Contract, these are changes he has advocated for himself.
“Capital gains from appreciation of having and holding assets are taxed at half the applied rate, effectively entrenching the benefit of having and holding assets that can only exist if you are established,” the book reads. “There is no intergenerational justice in such preferential arrangements.”
