Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 1211 Clearly stamp duty as a tax on the sale of a home is adding to the cost of housing. Unfortunately state governments have become very protective of this large income stream which added around $9 billion to NSW state income. The Urban Taskforce supports the reduction of stamp duty with a preference for it to be replaced by a land tax across all buildings on land as this captures increase in value each year. The NSW Government could follow the lead of the ACT Government in moving from stamp duty to a land tax. The Infrastructure Australia report on Value Capture also supported replacing stamp duty with a broad based land tax. Another big scale financial issue would be to develop an institutional funding mechanism for an affordable housing asset class. Canada is very advanced in this area. Superannuation Funds, particularly those that service key workers, could become investors in affordable housing if the numbers built up significantly. The Australian Government has floated the idea of a bond aggregator that enabled cheap funding to be directed into affordable housing. The Urban Taskforce supports all of these initiatives to rethink taxation and institutional funding mechanisms. 9 ENSURE VALUE CAPTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE CONTRIBUTIONS DO NOT STOP HOUSING PROJECTS Value Capture Report Over the last few years there has been a boom in all levels of government wanting to apply value capture to new housing projects. The Parramatta Light Rail project, as an example, proposes to tax only new housing projects near the Light Rail at $200 a square metre. There is no tax on existing residential or retail or commercial projects. Clearly taxes like this will drive housing costs upward. There seems to be a community attitude that the developer should pay for infrastructure, affordable housing, Section 94, State Infrastructure Contributions and somehow the developer will absorb these costs. The Urban Taskforce believes that the continual taxing of developers has added significant costs to new housing. The Urban Taskforce has produced a research paper with the University of NSW titled 'Value Capture is Not a Magic Pudding'. Infrastructure Australia has issued a report on Value Capture that comes up with a very similar conclusion. The Infrastructure Australia report says: "…Reforming state land taxes represents the most efficient way to capture value over long term." 10 SUPPORT STAMP DUTY REFORMS AND INSTITUTIONAL FUNDING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING