Dear Premier Baird,
The please find attached email (23rd November 2015) that has not been responded to. I would appreciate your response as Premier regarding a state land tax (SLT) policy that discourages exclusively rental housing if privately owned and how this improves the supply of affordable rental housing, which your government constantly refers to being in crises, while proposing spending billions on affordable housing.
My local member Bruce Notley-Smith (Coogee, also the member for Wakehurst) has been copied in seeking his input and assistance to have answered a simple question. Yet my question — put simply below in my email of 23rd November 2015, remains unanswered.
My question is simple: Why apply State Land Tax (SLT) to discourage exclusively rental apartment buildings if privately owned?
Or, put another way: How does this SLT policy assist a rental housing crises?
I first met you as an Opposition Member for Manly at a Tony Abbott fund-raiser. You walked with Andrew Strauss and I to our cars and asked me about land tax. I advised you that SLT in the Manly council area was about 800% higher than Manly council residential land tax — rates.
You responded “How does that occur?“ I responded, “That, was one of the most truthful replies I have received from a politician”. And it remained confidential. However, the NSW government’s SLT agenda has become so outrageously unfair to private housing tenants and providers your government’s agenda needs questioning and you have had time to understand how SLT impacts.
A concern that the O’Farrell soon proposed a wide base SLT (levy) that included the residential sector. Although not proceeded with, the current Treasurer has introduced a wide-based SLT levy requiring local councils to collect, while your Government insists councils are in financial crises and must amalgamate. Perhaps, they are in crisis because dealing with pegged local land tax rates that compete with un-pegged SLT, and both applied using the same land valuation methodology of 1916, which Treasury exploits to deliver SLT impact.
Land banking is to be discouraged and SLT has a role, however, SLT as now imposed outrageously targets private housing tenants and their providers as well as small business requiring a freehold site to operate.
Confidential letter to Mike Baird — 28 December 2011
Mr Premier, when Treasurer, you proposed (on radio 2GB Alan Jones, 16 October 2011) a 0.7% wide-based SLT that shocked me into writing you a confidential letter. Your had your secretary contact me, requesting the letter be passed to Treasury officialdom, I agreed.
You may not have appreciated at that time the impact of your proposals. I remembered your comment to Andrew Strauss and I, about comparable land tax rates in the Manly Council area. This proposal appeared to came from faceless treasury officialdom who have sought to widen SLT directing agendas that undermine exclusively rental housing, if, privately funded and owned.
The letter provided examples of how a wide-based 0.7% SLT would impact in various Council areas and transfer SLT liability to family homes, while SLT liability on business land is significantly reduced.
A fundamental that could not have been an oversight was that SLT, like council land tax rates, is not deductible against Federal tax liability on the family home but is deductible on business land use. (“What is the cost to the Federal Budget of deductible negative state taxes?” I asked, and received a two page letter advising “Don’t know”.)
My letter gave examples how a 0.7% wide based SLT would impact homes in various council areas, data provided by OSR and councils, that show significant increase in SLT revenue and the extent local council land tax ‘rate’ revenues is exceeded.
Example of Council in year 2012 provided
| Manly Council |
Proposed SLT raised from Manly residential housing estimated: $75,000,000. Manly Business property estimated $3,731,000 Total SLT $78,731,000. Proposed SLT exceeds SLT raised in Manly in 2011 by $55,427.000. Proposed SLT exceeds Manly Council total land tax 2012 ‘rate’ revenue by $55,897,000. |
|---|---|
| Warringah Council | Proposed SLT
Residential: $205.993,000. Proposed SLT exceeds Warringah total land tax 2012 ‘rate’ revenue by $155,505,000. |
| Pittwater Council | Proposed SLT
Residential: $126,995,000. Proposed SLT exceeds Pittwater total land tax ‘rate’ revenue by Total = $138,098,000. |
| Woollahra Council | Proposed SLT
Residential: $356,630,000. Proposed SLT exceeds Woollahra total land tax ‘rate’ revenue by $325,921,000. |
| Waverley Council | Proposed SLT
Residential: $122,630,000. Proposed SLT exceeds Waverley’s total land tax ‘rate’ revenue by $94,944,000. |
| Randwick Council | Proposed SLT
Residential: $174,158,000 Proposed SLT exceeds Randwick’s total land tax ‘rate’ revenue by $132,246,000 |
The above data was extracted from data provided by OSR and each council.
Your government advises that Local Government is not viable, while attempting to widen a competing SLT across all land use and supporting SLT being imposed exploiting a land valuation methodology intended for Local Government and the NSW Treasury knowns why. A SLT agenda that deliberately renders exclusively rental housing privately owned unviable, while advising the electorate of a rental housing crises.
I recently received a reply from Treasury which was the same as the Carr Government used back in 2003.
Your detailed response would be appreciated.
I await your reply
C.J. (Mike) Danzey
Date: 23 November 2015 10:52:16 AM AEDT
Subject: Sydney’s housing crisis: thousands seek affordable accommodation | smh.com.au
My dear Premier Mike Baird (Manly),
Bruce Notley-Smith (Coogee, my local member),
I have unsuccessfully asked the following simple question be answered. My recent effort (through my local member) received a reply 8 months later and produced the same old NSW Treasury bureaucrats obfuscation/fob-off the Carr Government used.
Now is reasonable straightforward question Treasury bureaucrat are unable to comprehend, a worry in itself.
Dear Premier, are you able to help, or are the inmates running government SLT policy? Please answer the question.
My best regards,
Mike Danzey
wordpress.com
This article from The Sydney Morning Herald may provide Treasury a lead why I seek an answer.
Regards,
Mike Danzey