Capital Gains Tax

[Aaron]

That doesn't solve the problem. Is a landlord who now pays income tax on capital gain also to pay the CGT? Or are some only going to pay CGT without income tax? At what stage does a property investor become a trader? Are developers to pay both? No matter how you lookn at it, it's still a line drawing execrcise. The only way to simplify it is to call all capital gained income. Primary residence and repatriated funds should be exempt.

I am not quite sure what you mean, for a landlord to be paying income tax on a capital gain currently he would have to be trading property or a developer etc so the capital gain for him is income and all his property is unfortunately tainted by a trader/developer status.
But most landlords currently would not be traders/developers and they would not pay any tax on a capital gain if they sold their property. A CGT would mean these landlords would now have to pay tax on a capital gain. The trader/developers would continue to argue with IRD over their status and would be trying to get any gains treated as capital rather than income so the gains would be taxed at the lower CGT rates rather than the higher income tax rates(they would end up paying some tax one way or another). Whether a gain is considered capital or income depends on what your business is.

[fungus pudding]

I am not quite sure what you mean, for a landlord to be paying income tax on a capital gain currently he would have to be trading property or a developer etc so the capital gain for him is income and all his property is unfortunately tainted by a trader/developer status.
But most landlords currently would not be traders/developers and they would not pay any tax on a capital gain if they sold their property. A CGT would mean these landlords would now have to pay tax on a capital gain. The trader/developers would continue to argue with IRD over their status and would be trying to get any gains treated as capital rather than income so the gains would be taxed at the lower CGT rates rather than the higher income tax rates(they would end up paying some tax one way or another). Whether a gain is considered capital or income depends on what your business is.

Precisely. The point I was trying to make is that it does not address the 'half arse' intention nonsense as suggested in your earlier post. (I should add that I'm not so sure that most landlords are exempt from income tax on exit. The IRD have recently been instructed by govt. to tighten up on this very point. My view is they will look closely at landlords who have not made a profit because of their gearing. If they purchase without a reasonable chance of a profit from the rental activity, then the reason threy bought is obviously for sale one day at a profit. So regardless of what they say is their intention - the IRD will very likely view a profit as income. When I first became a landlord many moons ago the IRD used to apply that test, but then gave up. )