Education Minister Jason Clare has defended the government’s rush to legislate its budget tax changes, the first tranche of which will be put before the parliament today.
Clare said the winding back of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, which the Coalition opposes and which has received backlash from an online campaign, would be done in stages.
“The first bill gets introduced today, but there’ll be a series of bills to implement these reforms, as there always is with big tax reform,” he told Sunrise.
Clare left the door open to widening capital gains tax exemptions for businesses as the consultation process continues.
Asked whether the government might increase the threshold so businesses with a turnover of $10 million, rather than the current $2 million, would be exempt from the capital gains tax, Clare said: “That’s what those conversations are about right now.”
“The bill today is about cutting income tax and about making it easier to buy a house, and it sets the foundations for these tax changes, but the second bill that we introduced will have all of that detail,” he said.
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