China`s largest international real estate website accuses Australia`s government of unfairly raising taxes on foreign buyers. Juwai.com `s 2018 / 19 Foreign buyer restriction report singly named Australia and Canada as two provinces that have increased taxes or restrictions on foreign property buyers over the past two years.
While both the Australian Reserve Bank (RBA) and the Australian Treasury said foreign buyers were not the main reason for the rise, the report said "ensuring the housing affordability of local residents" was seen as a motivation for such restrictions and taxes.
"in fact, the Treasury found in its" Foreign Investment and Housing Price growth "study that nearly 100 percent of the rise in property prices is due to other factors, and that less than 1 percent is the cause of foreign buyers. The report says. "even so, Australia`s states and territories cannot resist revenues from stamp duty from foreign buyers, who, after all, have no votes and are vulnerable to confiscation policies as soft persimmons."
Ms. (Carrie Law) Liu, chief executive and director of Juwai.com, said the tax on foreign buyers created an image of what the state government was doing without having to address the main causes of the housing affordability crisis-stamp duty and planning mechanisms. She warned that any further restrictions or taxes could come at the expense of the long-term benefits of foreign buyers-more construction jobs and supply of new homes. "Stamp duty reached 52.8 percent of all state and local government revenue in fiscal 2017," the report said. "however, the housing market has slowed, especially in New and Victoria.
"this could reduce state revenue and undermine the state budget, so states may try to fill this gap by increasing taxes on foreign buyers, although it may prevent transactions that they want to profit from." `it `s hard to say when foreign buyers will start to think it`s not worth buying in Australia, but there`s no such sign, `Ms. Luo said. Foreign investment in Australian residential real estate plummeted 47 billion yuan in 2016 / 17, according to data released last month by the Foreign Investment Review Committee. The Chinese are the largest investors in all types of real estate in Australia, but investment has fallen to 15.2 billion yuan, down from 31.5 billion yuan over the same period.
