Treasury Laws Amendment (Responsible Buy Now Pay Later and Other Measures) Bill 2024

The majority voted against amendments introduced by Petrie MP Luke Howarth (Liberal), which means they failed. The amendments would have deleted Schedule 1 from the bill.

What did these amendments do?

Mr Howarth explained that:

The amendments omit schedule 1 from the Treasury Laws Amendment (Responsible Buy Now Pay Later and Other Measures) Bill 2024. This schedule would create generous tax breaks for institutional investors who develop build-to-rent housing. We believe the government's handling of the housing crisis has been marked by significant failures, particularly in its approach to build-to-rent in this bill. Since the only housing policies that have delivered support to first home buyers are the housing policies Labor inherited from us, the coalition oppose the schedule with this build-to-rent policy. Labor has prioritised corporate homeownership over individual homeownership.

According to the parliamentary library's digest:

Schedule 1 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Responsible Buy Now Pay Later and Other Measures) Bill 2024 proposes the following BTR [Build to Rent] tax incentives, provided certain eligibility criteria are met:

• increasing the capital works deduction rate from 2.5% to 4% per year for eligible new BTR developments

• reducing the final withholding tax rate on eligible fund payments and capital gains from Managed Investment Trust investments for eligible BTR developments from 30% to 15%, with application from 1 July 2024.

Amendment text

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 2), omit the table item.

(2) Schedule 1, page 4 (line 1) to page 25 (line 16), omit the Schedule.