{"id":49777,"date":"2026-07-13T15:49:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/49777\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T15:49:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:49:22","slug":"australian-businesses-will-be-punished-for-succeeding-under-labors-capital-gains-tax-changes-geoff-wilson-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/49777\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian businesses will be ‘punished for succeeding’ under Labor’s capital gains tax changes, Geoff Wilson warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian businesses will be \u201cpunished for succeeding\u201d as Labor\u2019s tax changes fail to carve out prosperous companies, top fund manager Geoff Wilson has warned.<\/p>\n

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will still allow early stage investors, founders and employee share scheme participants to access the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He will also extend the discount to companies with less than $10 million in annual turnover while other companies will be subject to the new inflation adjusted model which implements a minimum 30 per cent rate.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson, an outspoken critic of the change, said restricting the carve-out to these small companies and enterprises was anti-growth and anti-aspirational.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government says it wants to support innovative Australian businesses, but its proposed concession excludes many businesses once they do exactly what public policy should encourage: list on the ASX, raise growth capital, employ more Australians and give everyday investors the opportunity to participate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA start-up should not be punished for succeeding. A company should not lose support because it grows, lists or raises capital in Australia\u2019s public markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery great Australian company started small. If policy makes it harder for those companies to attract capital as they grow, Australia will have fewer future leaders, fewer jobs and weaker productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The carve-outs have been widely criticised by business bodies and groups for acting as \u201cdamage control\u201d for Labor’s controversial CGT overhaul<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Andrew McKellar said the carve-outs fail to address the broader negative impact of Labor\u2019s tax changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government is trying to ameliorate the damage of these CGT changes, but that is all it does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill still imposes a significant new tax burden, penalising investment in a wide range of businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie broke rank with the party and argued the changes would send capital overseas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Illogical\u2019:<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the changes that are proposed don’t work,\u201d Mr Beattie told Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201c(They) do not work for research and it’ll see people go overseas, it’ll see a brain drain (and) it’ll see capital leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson has argued the CGT change should not apply to any productive assets.<\/p>\n

He stressed the carve-outs confirmed the \u201ccentral flaw\u201d in the tax reforms and would hurt Australia’s dire productivity rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not tax reform. That is an admission the reform is flawed,\u201d Mr Wilson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot fix a structural problem with a narrow, conditional and capped concession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s tax changes are seen as a threat to the nation\u2019s already low productivity rate \u2013 which fell 0.6 per cent in the March quarter.<\/p>\n

Productivity measures Australia\u2019s GDP against the number of hours worked and is seen as crucial to tackling the rise of inflation while Australia\u2019s GDP recovers from its post-pandemic slump.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson said the nation\u2019s productivity growth will take a hit if investment is taxed at a higher rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will not build more innovative businesses by making early-stage capital more uncertain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it will not build more Australian success stories by telling investors that only some businesses, at some stages, under some conditions, deserve support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right answer is not a narrow concession. The right answer is to retain the 50 per cent CGT discount for productive Australian assets and stop making it harder for Australian businesses to attract the capital they need to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian businesses will be \u201cpunished for succeeding\u201d as Labor\u2019s tax changes fail to carve out prosperous companies, top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,2038,4957,8373,3180,156,546,35874],"class_list":["post-49777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-capital-gains-tax","tag-cgt","tag-geoff-wilson","tag-jim-chalmers","tag-labor","tag-tax","tag-tax-carve-outs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}