CGT great for tax lawyers

Geordie Hooft writes in The Press:

As a tax adviser, I can tell you that CGT tends to be complex – it’s one of the reasons that the Australian Master Tax Guide weighs nearly 40 per cent more than its New Zealand counterpart. One thing is for sure – CGT will be a boon for tax advisers and valuers.

Taxpayers will need to consider those costs in addition to the cost of the tax itself.

Labour’s CGT is so complex that even the MPs who wrote the policy don’t understand it! It is so riddled with exemptions, that it will have massively high compliance costs as even the smallest businesses has to hire expensive tax lawyers and accountants to help them cope with it – and many individuals will find they can no longer safely do their own tax returns, but will need to have a professional do their tax for them.