Australians are older but not wiser: Growing class of investors who applaud house price increases; Prohibitively high cost of housing is seeing more and more young people rent
Tweet Topic Started: 20 Sep 2013, 10:06 AM (2,614 Views)
"One of my regular neighbourhood walks takes me past a fine example of Queen Anne architecture. The elegant family home has three sculptural red-brick chimney stacks towering from its multi-gabled roof, the horizontal ridge lines capped with decorative terracotta ornaments. Although the house is well maintained, its charms have begun to look slightly faded in recent years. The paint on the woodwork is no longer fresh and a front garden that was once cared for now looks as if it is simply maintained. ''Mary'', who owns the house, is in her late 80s and has lived there alone since the death of her husband several years ago. In popular parlance, she is the archetypal little old lady rattling around in the old family home. In the language of public policy and economics, Mary is an ''over-consumer'' of housing and her choice of dwelling is ''inefficient''. Put another way, she is helping to reduce supply and inflate prices. The number of older Australians who live alone in large homes is startling. An analysis of 2011 census data reveals that of homeowners aged 70 and over who live alone, 62 per cent have a house with three or more bedrooms. That adds up to 238,078 houses with at least three bedrooms occupied by just one person. Among houses owned by older couples (with at least one partner aged over 70), 82 per cent - or 332,752 houses - have at least three bedrooms.
"One of my regular neighbourhood walks takes me past a fine example of Queen Anne architecture. The elegant family home has three sculptural red-brick chimney stacks towering from its multi-gabled roof, the horizontal ridge lines capped with decorative terracotta ornaments. Although the house is well maintained, its charms have begun to look slightly faded in recent years. The paint on the woodwork is no longer fresh and a front garden that was once cared for now looks as if it is simply maintained. ''Mary'', who owns the house, is in her late 80s and has lived there alone since the death of her husband several years ago. In popular parlance, she is the archetypal little old lady rattling around in the old family home. In the language of public policy and economics, Mary is an ''over-consumer'' of housing and her choice of dwelling is ''inefficient''. Put another way, she is helping to reduce supply and inflate prices. The number of older Australians who live alone in large homes is startling. An analysis of 2011 census data reveals that of homeowners aged 70 and over who live alone, 62 per cent have a house with three or more bedrooms. That adds up to 238,078 houses with at least three bedrooms occupied by just one person. Among houses owned by older couples (with at least one partner aged over 70), 82 per cent - or 332,752 houses - have at least three bedrooms.
We need a government department to cover this one. The department of house reassignment. Mary being 80 could be mandatorily down sized. To say a bedsit 80km from the nearest bus station. The when Mary dies from being shifted out of her family home and loneliness we can sell the bedsit to cover her funeral costs. Her family will then know the absolute futility of working for their retirement and their own home and can go on the dole and apply for state housing. Mary how could you be so selfish?? What where you thinking? A good socialist family could be using your home. In fact i think we start rounding up all people with the name Mary. Just to make an example. Peter :pop: What was she thinking.
Genx Raising the GST would also come with raising the tax free threshold of wage earners to approx $50k.
Doesn't matter. Consumption tax always hits those who consume the most. Income tax hits those who earn the the most. That's why Howard introduced GST when he did. Most Boomers were coming to the peak of their income, but were passing or past the peak of their consumption. GenX were in the opposite position, they were 10-20 years away from peak income, but coming into the peak consumption part of their life cycle, as most still are.
The GST, in combination with a reduction of income tax, was a tax on GenX to pay for Boomers. But all taxes target one group to pay for another, they are simply transfer payments. Usually, taxes are designed to target the middle class to pay the poor, this tax just happened to be a generational transfer tax from GenX to Boomers.
Raising GST will still target the same group of taxpayers, but even more so as we are 10 years further into the life cycle. Raising the tax free threshold wont change that. I'm guessing this idea came from a Boomer. Oh look, it did.
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