Empty housing now a target in aussie.

[Viking]

‘Criminal sanctions are available for false statements’: ATO tools up for empty house crackdown

In 2016, 11.2 per cent of private dwellings were unoccupied on Census night, compared with 10.7 per cent five years earlier, totalling 1,089,165 dwellings. In Melbourne and Sydney, the number of empty properties increased by 19 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

In November, federal Parliament passed legislation giving the Australian Taxation Office power to fine foreign investors up to $5500 a year if they leave their properties empty, plus up to $52,500 for failing to lodge their forms.
Meanwhile, the Victorian state government’s vacant residential land tax kicks in from January 1, with owners in 16 council areas facing potential fines equal to 1 per cent of the property’s value.

https://www.realestate.com.au/news/criminal-sanctions-are-available-for-false-statements-ato-tools-up-for-empty-house-crackdown/?rsf=syn%3Anews%3Anca%3Acm%3Asocref

TOUGH STUFF. Wonder if Twatford will do this here?

[Learning]

1% land tax won’t have any effect on land bankers, not when properties are going up in value 15%+ a year.

[Davo36]

I see both sides of this.

The right winger in me says it's private property and people should be able to do what they want with it.

The left winger in me says it's stupid to have a bunch of empty houses (whilst their overseas owners leave them empty) and people living on the streets.

[Don't believe the Hype]

all you need to do is put it on air BNB then it isn't empty - it's occupied occasionally

[eri]

with many land banked properties worth more than a million

would have thought a >$10,000 a year 'land bank tax'

would focus minds on selling

[Bob Kane]

The left winger in me says it's stupid to have a bunch of empty houses (whilst their overseas owners leave them empty) and people living on the streets.

Why don't the street dwellers rent the empty houses?

It will be good to see how this plays out - it seems the focus is to punish the owner of an empty house rather than to help homeless people.
Punishing owners, especially 'overseas owners' is a common envy tax strategy.
Unintended consequences will result.

[Don't believe the Hype]

Why don't the street dwellers rent the empty houses?

It will be good to see how this plays out - it seems the focus is to punish the owner of an empty house rather than to help homeless people.
Punishing owners, especially 'overseas owners' is a common envy tax strategy.
Unintended consequences will result.

Many of the foreign owners don't want the hassle of tenants in their property. The property is simply a place to park cash outside their less stable home country. Many of them aren't interested in the 3-4% yield offered to encourage them to bother with tenants.

[Bob Kane]

Many of the foreign owners don't want the hassle of tenants in their property. The property is simply a place to park cash outside their less stable home country. Many of them aren't interested in the 3-4% yield offered to encourage them to bother with tenants.

I agree.
And that's why any attempt to get those houses into the rental pool will fail.
If some sort of tax is imposed then those owners will simply rent them to themselves (or each other) to dodge the tax.
So this is an envy tax which doesn't care about homeless people but is using them to gain support for the tax.
It's what labour/socialists parties do - Jacinda will be watching it closely and seeing if there is any support in NZ for such a move.

[artemis]

all you need to do is put it on air BNB then it isn't empty - it's occupied occasionally

The article quoted indicates that won't work.

"If the foreign investor claims the dwelling is rented, but this is through short-term leases of less than 30 days, even if this totals over six months … the foreign owner will still need to pay the vacancy fee as the law requires leases to be of a residential nature of at least 30 days duration."

Not sure what a 'foreign investor' is over the ditch, but suggest a few folk may be consulting their lawyer on how to become a local investor. Similar to what has been suggested here. Nudge nudge ....

If my Australian rellies are typical, there is already a booming trade in creative approaches to asset ownership for superannuation purposes.

[Nick G]

The irony of it is that to avoid the tax penalty and rent it out the owner will have to comply with the healthy homes bill and whatever WOF makes it in.

[Wayne]

Such a waste of resource.
It ultimately costs the country to have this wastage.
Hard to stop though.

[Perry]

Hard to stop after it started.

It would have been too much for the W'gton (or ACT) woodenheads to prevent the cause; rather, leaving it until it was necessary to chase the symptoms in stupid ways became the easiest.

All they needed to do was go back to the ways of yore:

If you're not a citizen, sorry, you can't own land or buildings in this country.

[Nick G]

Well the IRD should have a list of rental properties because anything run as a business must file taxes, right?

Much harder are owner occupied "holiday" homes. Wealthy people own properties that they may visit 2-3 weeks a year but maintain year round. The number of these properties wouldn't make even a small dent in any housing crisis and they are not in the location or price range that people who want to rent properties can afford to be in. Tougher to discern would be businesspeople who have an apartment or something in Auckland that they use when here but is otherwise empty. I spend a lot of time in Asia and am seriously thinking of buying an apartment to use while I'm in the city. I'd probably put it on AirBNB but many folks won't want that hassle. My putting it on AirBNB doesn't help with the goal of providing more permanent housing however.

[Wayne]

Well the IRD should have a list of rental properties because anything run as a business must file taxes, right?

They will have a list of people (or companies) who file returns for rental properties.
A list of the actual properties they will have to dig a bit but some data matching should get them that.
Though how they tell which are my rentals and which are not (of the properties I own (or my company does) I don't know.

[Anthonyacat]

They will have a list of people (or companies) who file returns for rental properties.
A list of the actual properties they will have to dig a bit but some data matching should get them that.
Though how they tell which are my rentals and which are not (of the properties I own (or my company does) I don't know.

Bit of a dumb mismatch in data sourcing, actually. Individuals who own rental properties need to fill in an IR3R, which states the address of the property and how many months it's been rented out for. Companies (including LTCs) and trusts don't fill in this form.