Benjamin Ng

Just do it!

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@OMGTheMess @jgrogan222 … then you are creating supply, and actually fixing the problem.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@vxunderground Do you use that to cook your eggs?

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@JohnHumphreys99 @AusTaxpayers Or just make it zero and save everyone the headache…

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@DavidBassanese Cleanest solution is 0% CGT in everything.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@ourdwelltell @JasonGFalinski Where do u propose to start…

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Not at all, and that’s the whole point. People shouldn’t be forced to pay a million dollars for something they can’t afford, don’t want or don’t need.

That doesn’t stop someone from building or buying a multimillion dollar house. In fact it gives more people a chance to increase their standard of living because they aren’t forced into poverty spending all their money on a house when they can’t afford it, and instead can allocate their limited capital into things that are more relevant to them and more conducive to their long term growth and standard of living.

Why should people be forced to buy your studio apartment view of a ‘decent’ starting point home? that’s a way worse and way more expensive standard of living outcome than many of the other options people go for when they have to freedom to. Can’t even cook in that apartment without getting food smells into your bed - disgusting 🤮

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

If that were correct, then communist countries would be wildly successful at providing shelter and have the best standards of living in the world. Yet history has shown that the opposite is true.

When housing (and anything else) is treated as a form of wealth creation we get lots of it at high quality in a form that people need. As we can see from history.

Wealth creation is what improves standards of of living. And it does it faster than anything else.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

That makes no sense. We want more investors and more ways to finance housing, not less. Easy access to funding is what allows people to create more housing with less resources.

The amount of money tied up funding tax payments is yet another reason housing is expensive and productivity is low. when half of all the money going into housing is purely to cover tax obligations/pay the government, it creates massive interest costs and financial burden and stops the money being used to create more housing and accommodation and other productive uses.

We already have the technology, processes and know how to build a house in under 6 weeks - we were doing that decades ago. But excessive regulation has pushed it out to over a year, sometimes 2 years to build a house today. All it takes is for the government to get out of the way….

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Existing homes already had it paid for when it was new (unless it already existed prior to the gst being introduced). The costs like any other costs get passed on in the price.

Ultimately, if you buy a home for shelter, you pay every tax that every investor incurred in creating the property you are buying.

The only way to reduce the cost of housing is to reduce the cost of housing. The biggest cost is government taxes, fees, charges and regulatory burden.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Not true. GST is payable on all new residential property:
https://t.co/S5Cn23lx3B
Existing properties have it built into the price. Because no one is going to pay the tax when the property is new and then not pass it on when they sell it again.

Stamp duty is payable every time a property changes hands. By the time it gets to a first home buyer, there is already several layers of stamp duty built into the price. Because again, no one pays the tax and doesn’t pass it on in the price.

Regardless of what council rates are for (you can say any tax is for something), they are still a tax like any other. In fact it’s one of the fastest increasing taxes, increasing several times inflation every year. Since Covid, for many properties it’s increased by as much as 180% or more.

This is why it’s illegal to provide affordable housing - the taxes on the property by themselves are already unaffordable and they much be paid.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

By house, we are talking about any residential dwelling. Half of the price of that studio you call home is tax and it gets higher every year.

Here is an incomplete list of the taxes I’m referring to:
- GST (10%)
- stamp duty (as much as 6.5% + a fixed value in some states, additional 8% for foreign buyers). Paid every time a property changes hands (at lease once by the developer and once by the home buyer)
- development application fees (generally starting at 5 figures)
- headworks charges (varies - from 5 figures to millions)
- building application fees (varies - from 4 figures)
- other compulsory developer contributions (varies - the sky is the limit)
- title and registrations charges (several hundred)
- portable long service leave fees (varies, 0.575% of building contract price in Qld for example)

Add them up, it’s not hard to see why housing is expensive and how the taxes make up half the cost. It’s no coincidence that the states and councils with higher taxes have higher housing prices.

Then there are the ongoing taxes (on top):
- property tax (as much as 5.6%)
- council rates (varies 3-4 figures/quarter generally)
- registration fees (if renting depending on type of landlord) ($500+/yr)

What you are referring to by concessions/incentives is typically on taxes that aren’t even included when we say half of the cost of a house is taxes. Those taxes (income tax, cgt, windfall gains taxes etc) are on top of that.

Yes that is how ridiculous it is.

The hia tracks this every 7 years or so, this is their latest report from 2025:
https://t.co/Csn62M9EPv

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Home is subjective. It’s different for different people at different times and under different attitudes and certainly not something the government should be deciding.

For me it is in my head and doesn’t require anything in the physical world. It sounds like for you it’s a studio. There was a famous guy in my city, rumoured to be a multi millionaire, who lived in the park amongst garbage bags - for him, that was his decent home, more decent than the multi million dollar mansions he could afford.

But the topic is about housing.

The claim that was made was that it’s illegal to build affordability housing in Australia. And it’s 100% correct. Why? because the regulations and taxes by themselves are so high that before you even pay for one brick, it’s unaffordable.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

I don’t think you understand.

Houses are inherently affordable (using your definition of affordable). It’s the $400k+ of taxes on the average house that isn’t . Then the regulation requiring an additional $20k+ for special windows, $100k+ for disability requirements, $5-6k for solar panels, several hundred dollars for extra sinks the list goes on and on.

Take the average price of an average house, minus out all the taxes and regulatory costs and it’s affordable already.

If you are talking vision for minimum standards for an affordable house in an urban area - as I said before - roof that doesn’t leak, running water, electricity and sewage. I know that’s not what you want to hear - you’d like to hear a grand vision of an ‘affordable’ mansion costing millions of dollars (ignoring the fact that it costs millions of dollars). But that’s simply not affordable and just makes people homeless.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Take off the taxes and the average new house of today is more affordable by a half.

Take off the most of the regulations they added the last couple of decades and it’s more affordable by another 30-50% and within your definition of an affordable house.

We don’t need to redesign the house or create fancy visions for housing designs to make it affordable. Just need to get the government out of the way. You know, like when houses were affordable.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

In general, when it comes to affordable housing, a roof that doesn’t leak and basic utilities - running water, electricity, sewage.

More than that is a cost that people should have a choice on whether they want to pay for. Making the bells and whistles mandatory just forces people to pay for stuff they don’t want or can’t afford (ie makes them homeless and puts them into poverty).

Timeline? Now and until you want something more comfortable and can afford it (helped by not being forced to pay for the extras) - some people only ever want the basics and they should be allowed to do that.

There is an argument for even less than that - for example it shouldn’t have to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a basic cabin in the bush with minimal services if someone wants a dwelling close to nature.

We had all of this before the large tax and regulatory burden increases that made entry level houses cost almost a million dollars.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@ourdwelltell @JasonGFalinski So how are you going to have an affordable house when the taxes and regulatory costs alone are higher than that?

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@ourdwelltell @JasonGFalinski How much do u think a house should cost to be affordable?

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

Or you could stop making problems where there aren’t any.

We’ve gone for hundreds of years without it being a problem. Why start now? It’s only adding unnecessary costs and pricing people out of the market.

Billionaires can have fancy houses with the latest in efficient technologies etc. but most people don’t need it or even want to pay for it.

A house shouldn’t have $400k+ in taxes and hundreds of thousands of dollars of regulatory costs. At this point most of the cost of a house is purely government costs.

There is only one reason houses are unaffordable - government.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

This is another regulatory factor that increased the cost of housing. The government is famous recently for killing or holding up and adding cost to a lot of supply due to unreasonable climate/flood requirements.

Australia is literally a freaking desert subject to floods, heat waves, cyclones and fires. We’ve dealt with it for hundreds and thousands of years.

If u like the minimum housing cost to be over a million then keep going down this path. right now, because of this only millionaires can afford a house, keep going and only billionaires will be able to.

[Benjamin Ng @bcyng]

@ourdwelltell @JasonGFalinski And this is why you need a million dollars to buy a house.

For everyone else there is the tent in the local park down the road.