How the Albanese government’s Federal Budget changes to capital gains tax won’t just affect property but everything from jewellery and designer handbags to wine and bitcoin

The changes to Australia’s capital gains tax won’t just affect property investors but investors across the board – even those who deal in luxury handbags.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers revealed Australia’s capital gains tax discount will be axed in favour of inflation indexation.

Capital gains tax (CGT) is a tax applied to the profit made from selling assets, paid as part of income tax, and is currently subject to a 50 per cent discount. 

Indexation would replace the discount and see the original price of a property adjusted for inflation, then tax charged on the sale profit compared to the inflated price. 

That will come into effect alongside a minimum 30 per cent tax on gains from July 1, 2027.

The move, along with changes negative gearing rules, were made to shift tax benefits away from residential housing investors to first-time home buyers in an effort to refocus housing as shelter rather than a tool to grow wealth.

While the change presents the biggest blow to property investors, other investments from cryptocurrency to high-end wine and even designer handbags will be subject to the change.

Take for example PR guru Roxy Jacenko who was previously labelled Sydney’s Hermès Birkin queen over her fabled collection pf the designer bags, valued at $1million back in 2023.

Just one of her bags, an ultra-rare crocodile skin Birkin, could retail for anything between $70,000 and $435,000. 

The capital gains tax on just one or two of those handbags could easily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. 

‘I don’t buy based on what I like. It’s more about what’s most saleable long-term as I look at my collection as an investment,’ Jacenko told viewers of her TV special, I Am…Roxy.

Jacenko has moved to Singapore with her bitcoin-mining-turned-tech-entrepreneur husband Oliver Curtis, but she proves Australian investors are no longer tied to traditional assets.

Tuan Van Le, Challenger Law managing director and principal lawyer, told the Sydney Morning Herald the change to CGT would be detrimental to start-ups dealing with unconventional assets, like crypto.

‘If the start-up is successful, they’ll end up paying more tax than with the discount,’ he said.

‘It will be less enticing for people to start up their own crypto company.’

Chalmers earlier defended the CGT reform as ‘difficult but necessary’ step to helping young people enter the property sector.

‘I think what people will see in the budget on Tuesday is a lot of effort, including new policies, to support start-ups and venture capital,’ the treasurer told Sky News.

‘We see them as a really crucial part of the economy and increasingly so.

‘Without pre-empting any announcements in Tuesday night’s budget, there is a focus on start-ups and on venture capital, a positive one.’

The other clamp-down on wealthy investors, negative gearing – where a landlord can deduct losses on a rental property against their wages at tax time – will be limited to newly built homes from July 2027.

This and the capital gains tax changes will leave the nation’s finances $77billion better off over the next 11 years, the government claims.

Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson blasted the budget, accusing Labor of imposing new taxes and declaring the opposition would not support the changes.

The reforms will also allow more than 13 million workers to receive a $250 payment in every tax return from 2027 onwards.

While house prices have risen more than 400 per cent since 1999, average incomes have increased at less than half that rate.