Greg Neill: Budget lacks property tax detail

Unanswered questions include how the divide between "residential" and commercial property will be framed. Photo / NZME.

Yesterday was Budget announcement day and, as predicted by many, the changes to the taxation of property investment announced on Sunday were the main points of interest from a tax perspective.

Other measures announced yesterday include the immediate repeal of the $1000 "kickstart" payment for new members of the KiwiSaver scheme.

It was noted that there remain strong incentives to join KiwiSaver notwithstanding the removal of the kickstart payment.

However, given the limitations on access to funds in KiwiSaver and the unavailability of the member tax credit for those under 18, there must now be some disincentive for parents to enrol young children in the scheme, as opposed to contributing to a standard savings or investment account.

The introduction of a new border clearance levy for overseas travellers was also announced and will take effect from January 1, 2016.

This is to fund passenger-related biosecurity and customs activities at the border and so it is deemed fairer to impose those funding costs on travellers through the levy.

Other points of note include a $500 million reduction in ACC levies and a range of welcome measures relating to child welfare, including measures to reduce child support debt attributable to accrued penalties.

However, on the commercial tax front, the two main talking points were the lack of any further detail on the changes for property investment and the notable lack of any policy changes similar to those announced in the Australian Federal Budget earlier in the month.

The Australians have announced a crackdown on tax avoidance by multi-national enterprises, the imposition of GST on the offshore supply of digital services to Australian consumers and a raft of measures to help farming businesses, such as automatic deductions for capital costs on fencing and water facilities.

The Government is likely to address these sorts of issues as a matter of tax policy separately but, given the lack of detail on the property investment changes, it was surprising not to have at least some further statements of principle in relation to multi-nationals and the imposition of GST on supplies from the likes of NetFlix.

In addition, many of us were expecting some further detail around the tax changes for residential property investment.

Those comprise the new rule that will deem residential property sales within two years of acquisition to be taxable, as well as the ancillary detection and enforcement requirements in relation to bank accounts and the provision of IRD numbers.

Unanswered questions include how the divide between "residential" and commercial property will be framed, how property held in family trusts will be treated and whether losses from the sale of residential property will be freely available to be offset with other income. We now wait for that detail in the consultation document to be released in July.

•Greg Neill is head of tax advisory at Crowe Horwath - Hastings, Napier and Waipukurau, and can be contacted at greg.neill@crowehorwath.co.nz.

•Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz