Australia does something a bit weird: if you make money selling a house or shares, you get taxed at half the rate you’d pay on your actual job. Nice if you’re the one pocketing the profit… not so great if you’re trying to buy your first place and keep getting outbid by investors.

People have argued about this discount for years; it’s political TNT. Bill Shorten tried to change it twice and got burned both times. Now Labor’s back in government, the issue’s landed in a Senate inquiry, and it’s shaping up to be the first real showdown between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and newly appointed Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.

Is this tax break helping the country or just helping those already ahead? And if we tweaked it… would anything actually get better?

Guests: 

Brendan Coates – Program Director, Housing and Economic Security, Grattan Institute.

Cathal Leslie – Generation Z economist who has worked at the Productivity Commission, the Australian Treasury, and the OECD in Paris, now working in the AI sector.