{"id":5618,"date":"2026-05-06T05:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5618\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:22:12","slug":"albanese-government-to-implement-major-tax-reforms-within-current-term-as-labor-targets-negative-gearing-and-capital-gains-tax-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5618\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese government to implement major tax reforms within current term as Labor targets negative gearing and capital gains tax discount"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Albanese government will push ahead with sweeping tax reforms targeting investors this term of government amid drafted changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.<\/p>\n

Sources told Sky News the changes were expected to come into effect this term of government, rather than being delayed until after the 2028 election.<\/p>\n

Government sources said there was no intention to announce the reforms and deferring their start date to seek a fresh electoral mandate.<\/p>\n

This comes despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ruling out changes to negative gearing or capital gains ahead of the 2025 federal election.<\/p>\n

The likely implementation of tax reform will instead occur soon after the May 12 federal budget.<\/p>\n

Two start dates \u2014 July 1, 2026 or July 1, 2027 \u2014 appear the most probable, with a strong preference inside government to get them in as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Labor has examined a broad package of tax reforms ahead of the May 12 federal budget, with changes to three key tax settings under consideration.<\/p>\n

Sky News understands the Albanese government will restrict negative gearing, slash the capital gains tax discount and eliminate family trust tax breaks.<\/p>\n

The move comes as the\u00a0national debt has been forecast to soar past $1 trillion<\/a>\u00a0following heavy borrowing from successive governments.<\/p>\n

The latest indications suggest the government will move to restrict negative gearing to new properties, while grandfathering existing investments.<\/p>\n

Existing owners would be shielded from changes but future investors would no longer be able to deduct losses on established properties, under such an arrangement.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the government appears ready to overhaul capital gains tax, replacing the 50 per cent discount with an indexation model that taxes inflation-adjusted real gains.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether the change would be fully grandfathered or applied through a partial reset, where existing assets are revalued before the new system takes effect.<\/p>\n

Sources have also told Sky News that a tax on family trusts \u2013 used by higher-income households to minimise tax \u2013 remains under consideration.<\/p>\n

While a final decision has not been confirmed, expectations within government circles are that such a measure will be included.<\/p>\n

The tax reform agenda marks a significant shift from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese\u2019s pre-election stance when he ruled out capital gains tax changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proof’s in the pudding. If we were going to make changes, then why haven’t we?\u201d Mr Albanese told Sky News in May 2025, two days before the election.<\/p>\n

The government did not take any of the floated tax changes to voters at the 2025 election, when it won a supermajority.<\/p>\n

Despite those assurances, Mr Albanese has increasingly hinted at his intentions to repeal tax breaks for investors.<\/p>\n

During the week, he linked the government\u2019s economic agenda to concerns about intergenerational equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many young people, they feel like they haven\u2019t got a fair crack compared with my generation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanese government will push ahead with sweeping tax reforms targeting investors this term of government amid drafted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1757,22,4917,21,3220,6956,546],"class_list":{"0":"post-5618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-albanese-government","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-auspol","11":"tag-austrlia","12":"tag-budget","13":"tag-chalmers","14":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618","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=5618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}