Interesting, as Paul the socialist gains investments his attitude toward taxes shifts to the conservative.

As with all socialists, taxes are important as long as they only apply to others.

someone who seemingly envies and despises those who retired financially independent?
thinkabit,
I don't envy them but I despise their methods & hypocritically claiming achieving financial independence which is a lie ! Had they paid the same rate of Tax I wouldn't criticise but the because they didn't I have a go at them.
Many were of no benefit to anyone during their working years & this financial independence you speak of is all Taxpayer-funded.

Dear thinkabit,

You wrote:

"SteelRedux: Without negative gearing rents would sky rocket!!
For most small personal investors who build flats/houses for renting, negative gearing is the main draw card. Without it the rental returns, at the current rates, wouldn't be worth the risk. So if it was abolished the current housing stock available for renting would diminish causing rents to go up- the rental supply would diminish to a new level where the new rents received are again worth it for the risk involved."

Little bit of a classist response I'm afraid. You are acting like the renter class just want to stay renters and wouldn't chose to build their own home if that option was more open to them. But while they are struggling to scrape together for a deposit those who already own their own home and on well paying jobs can leverage that to easily come in over the top of them and pocket a $15,000 tax saving each year through negative gearing.

This in turn drives the prices up to take the dream of home ownership further out of reach.

Negative gearing is the driver of this inequity and to be championing the negative gearers because they are doing the supposed good deed of supplying housing stock for those renters who can't afford their own home because of that very policy is pretty short sighted.

Changes in the early 80s allowing rental property expenses to be offset against personal income saw a huge decline in the 25-34 year olds home ownership rates falling from near 60% to around 30% by 2016.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook46p/HomeOwnership

SM,

I'm not opposed to tax, at 69 I'm still paying tax to support your dole payment, and Indyvidual's piss and pokie money each fortnight. If it wasn't for the wife's $900/month non means tested NZ super we would have to sell assets. That's no big deal.

SteelRedux: It's not a zero sum game!! We had effectively an unlimited* number of residences that could be built. People who build an investment house for renting ARE NOT taking away a potential house that could be built for owner-occupiers. But what they do do when they build an investment house, is increase the supply of rentals, which subsequently causes rents to drop, which means that those who are renting can now save more (since they pay cheaper rents) for a deposit on their own home**.

*well, obviously there is some upper theoretical limit, but Australia had about seven and a half million square kilometers of land- even if only 2% of this was available for buildings that's heaps of land. Also, building can be made very tall these days. Just to put it in comparison, 2% would be about 150,000 km^2 which is about the size of Nepal which is basically a rural country with a population of about 30 million. And Nepal has no really big dense cities like Sydney- in fact it doesn't even have a single city with more than a million.
In Australia there's acres and acres of land surrounding the minor cities and major towns but still close to the CBD/town centre that could be developed.

Dear thinkabit,

You opine: "People who build an investment house for renting ARE NOT taking away a potential house that could be built for owner-occupiers."

THEY ARE.

The price of land in our small town has jumped dramatically as people who can't afford an established house in our nearby city. People are being forced to spend double what building the house will cost.

In the same city a lot of the old commission houses on big lots in 2 poorer suburbs were demolished as part of a revitalisation initiative from the State Government which cost nearly 60 million dollars. The the land then subdivided. Three builders only were selected to provide a range of house options to potential buyers. This was to encourage people into the market at a lower cost level. Nearly 3/4s went to investors who snapped up the lots as soon as they hit the market.

This is being played out across the country and it certainly doesn't reflect the position you are taking.