Youth voices drowned out in capital gains tax debate - no wonder we don't vote

Tuesday, 23 April 2019

A capital gains tax would mean property investors have to pay tax on the sale of investment properties.

OPINION: Every election year millennials get a bad rap for our low voter turn out.

Since we've been of voting age proportionately fewer members of our generation - born between 1980 and 2000 - have cast a ballot than the older Generation Xers and Baby Boomers.

And our parents and grandparents chide us for it. 'If you don't vote you can't complain,' they say.

But my question to them is: why would we vote?

*Eight financial things that are different for millennials

*Capital gains tax: Jacinda Ardern took a lifeboat off a ship she could have saved

*Top income tax band set to swell after major tax reform put off for '10 years' - expert**

Time and again it seems the powers that be refuse to listen to us.

Take climate change for example.

Despite young people clearly and repeatedly expressing our dismay at the dire state of the environment and calling for lawmakers to take drastic action - writing open letters, signing petitions and walking out of class to attend protests - the Government is yet to take decisive action on the issue.

To me, the Government's decision not to introduce a capital gains tax (CGT) is another example of how the voices of the young have been drowned out in discussions about New Zealand's future.

Last week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the coalition Government would not be introducing a CGT, despite a recommendation by the Tax Working Group to do so.

'While I have believed in a CGT, it's clear many New Zealanders do not,' she said.

I can only assume the 'many New Zealanders' Ardern was referring to was the vocal group of mostly white, older, wealthy landlords who had threatened to raise rents if a CGT came into effect.

I'm not aware of any hard figures about how many people held that view - but if a TVNZ poll is anything to go by it was a minority. The poll found most New Zealanders would support a CGT if the Government had also cut income taxes when it was introduced, which Stuff political reporter Henry Cooke said would likely have happened.

The majority of millennials I'd spoken to before Wednesday's announcement said they'd support a CGT.

That's probably not surprising - despite millennials (perhaps unfairly) being nicknamed 'Generation Me', studies have shown we're concerned by social and financial inequality and child poverty.

And a CGT could help make New Zealand fairer, coupled with a potential income tax cut it would leave most of us with more money in our pockets and would likely drive down house prices.

Given most millennials I know can't afford to buy a home of their own, I doubt many people of my generation would be opposed to the property market cooling slightly.

But once again our views have been ignored, our calls for change silenced.

Instead, those who've yelled the loudest and made the most grandiose claims - in this case that a CGT would actually hurt renters as landlords would pass on the cost by rising rents - have gotten their way.

When addressing media and the public, Ardern said it would most likely be at least a decade before a CGT was reconsidered.

That's 10 more years of ballooning income inequality.

That's 10 more years of having to bid against investors who can loan against their existing property portfolio when you're trying to buy your first home after several years of hard slog to save up a 20 per cent deposit.

There's so much for millennials to look forward to. No wonder many of us don't vote.

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