Labor’s cost of living crisis and expanding black hole in the Treasury has led many to believe that they’ll soon be taxing the air. After all, what is ‘carbon tax’ but a tax on the building blocks of life?
What no one expected was for a local council to leap straight over carbon and instead impose a tax on … the view.
Did you work hard, make sacrifices, and save up for a beach vista? Joke’s on you!
The Gold Coast council has gone full-socialist and decided to add a new ‘tax’ via massive rate hikes on residents who choose to live in high-rise apartment blocks. To be fair, it is not technically a tax on the view, because you will have to pay it regardless of what you see out the window.
(Isn’t high-rise living something governments are meant to be encouraging after Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ plan went tits-up into a housing crisis?)
If you’re unlucky enough to reside on the Gold Coast, anyone living on the 40th floor (or higher) will see their rates increase up to 50 per cent. This equates to thousands of dollars in exchange for a net zero increase to services.
They are not the only ones.
There is a full-scale assault on high-rise living with anyone higher than floor 5 being pick-pocketed by the council.
Between floors 5-10 there’s a 10 per cent rise, 11-20 have experienced a 30 per cent rise, and 21-40 saw rates rise 40 per cent.
But you know what hasn’t increased?
The quality of council services.
More disturbing is the entitled rhetoric used to justify the rate rises, with the council insisting this will provide ‘fairness and equity across ratepayer categories’.
Not equality. Equity.
It’s getting to the point where ‘equity’ needs to be redefined as ‘stealing from the rich’.
Too many governments and councils are throwing words such as ‘fairness’ and ‘equity’ around while subverting their meaning. There is nothing ‘fair’ about ripping money out of people because they are perceived to be ‘able to afford it’. That’s opportunistic theft, not ‘fairness’, and it’s about time people were called out for it.
It’s the kind of idiotic language that leads to declarations that raising rates on people who already pay more due to the value of their property is ‘the right thing to do’.
Right in what way?
What is the extra money being used for?
Where is the return on investment?
Why is the council in debt?
Why does it cost so much to do basic things?
Why is the payroll running into the hundreds of millions?
Do high-rise residents receive anything for their increased rates or is it being ‘re-distributed’ as part of the ‘greater-good’ vanity project?
Next the council will be complaining about empty apartments and developments going out of business as people abandon these properties for fairer and more ‘equitable’ states with views that are just as good.
‘…until 2013, rates had been calculated based on the value of the property and the latest changes re-established a model that charges a premium for high-rise that are more valuable than others.’
Division 9 councillor Glenn Tozer said:
‘When you take the full city into account, there is no reason I can think of that a penthouse owner should pay exactly the same as a ground floor unit, that’s not a fair model.’
Yes it is. They take up the same physical square footage of council area which is all that rates should represent. These premises attract a range of taxes based upon the value of the property. There’s money pouring out of their pockets into the hands of – who knows…?
Councils need to stop viewing residents as money trees ripe for the harvest instead of individuals that require council services.
‘I appreciate there is definitely going to be property owners in high-rises that will be frustrated … but the premise that a person living in a $2 million, $3 million, $5 million penthouse should pay exactly the same rates on the ground floor unit isn’t a fair model. People living in more expensive apartments pay a little bit more than people living in a ground floor unit and frankly, I think it’s the right thing to do.’
This justification assumes that rates are scaleable for wealth instead of a land-based split to cover service costs.
Indeed, we should open a discussion about ensuring councils account for every cent spent and then return unspent money to ratepayers.
The Strata Community Association of Queensland are right to say that this behaviour is ‘outrageous’.
‘The manner in which this has been dumped on owners of apartments is unheard of in modern government or even in modern business … the higher you go, the more you pay. There is no other way to look at it.’
And it doesn’t seem to matter to the council if your lofty apartment looks over a rubbish tip or the ocean. Height means wealth and they’re going to fleece owners for pressing the lift button.
Instead of fairness, it’s an introduction of socialist-style wealth taxes by stealth where hard work is reward with a good-old-fashion mugging.
How much money is the Gold Coast council spending? Roughly $2.5 billion for the City Budget.
Billion.
‘We have gone through the budget thoroughly to find savings and efficiencies right across our $2.5 billion City Budget,’ said Mayor Tom Tate.
What are they doing, paving the streets in gold?
‘In 2024-25 our debt will be around $520 million, $320 million less than it was in 2012. This puts us in a sound financial position to weather future global economic headwinds.’
Good luck with those economic headwinds when private money dries up and your sky-scrapers sit empty.
For every dollar raised in rates, the value of those properties drops. As their value drops, the building kitty decreases and guess who will eventually have to pick up the tab? The people on the lower floors. They might have escaped the ‘equitable rate rise’ but they won’t escape the obvious consequences of socialist politics.
