Australians residing overseas are ditching their Queensland funding properties after being stung through a tax targeted at foreigners and “absent” land owners raking in extra than $12 million.
Brisbane guy Craig Smith, who moved to Fiji to work as an IT representative in 2010, has put one of his properties in the marketplace after being slugged extra than $10,000 thru the absentee land tax, and turned into thinking about making an investment some other place in Australia or distant places.
Mr Smith stated he changed into no longer instructed about the surcharge earlier than it got here into effect, which means he did now not have a chance to keep away from it by way of promoting early, describing it as a “tax seize” on soft targets.
“As Australian citizens residing overseas, we nonetheless pay all applicable taxes each yr in Australia that relate to our investments,” he stated.
“However, we do no longer use any of the infrastructure – roads, health, education etc – as we live distant places and are taxed in different country wide jurisdictions.”
Mr Smith said his prolonged circle of relatives nevertheless lived in Brisbane and he visited 4 times a yr.
The absentee surcharge applies to proprietors of land in Queensland who do now not generally live in Australia, which include someone who is absent from the united states at June 30 or who’ve been absent for greater than six months.
There were 2150 land owners liable for the absentee surcharge for 2017-18, bolstering authorities coffers by using $12.8 million.
When the tax was delivered, then treasurer Curtis Pitt stated the measure – underneath the headline “overseas land proprietors” in his finances speech – would ensure “absentee owners of land are making a honest contribution and it has no direct effect on Queensland citizens”.
Treasurer Jackie Trad said the tax was used to offer the outstanding offerings and infrastructure that made Queensland a higher place to stay and personal property.
“It has been Queensland’s longstanding function that those who live foreign places and personal assets in Queensland are issue to better rates of land tax to account for the fact that they are now not difficulty to the range of taxes paid by using residents,” she said.
But Greg Fogarty, who become transferred to the United States for work in 2007, said he paid tax on condominium profits, GST on services and council charges.
“My land tax went from around $6500 a year to nearly $16,000 a year in a single fell swoop. This is outrageous,” he said.
“I worked for 40 years in Australia and continually paid my taxes.
