Saturday, August 15, 2009

How to kill a good idea

Get The Australian to report the government's considering it.

From Swan this afternoon:

STATEMENT FROM THE TREASURER

The story published on the front page of today’s Weekend Australian in relation to capital gains tax on family homes is factually incorrect.

There has been no request from the Government to the Australia’s Future Tax System review to model such proposals, we are advised that no such modelling is being carried out by the review, and therefore no recommendation of this sort will be made to us by the panel.

The Government is not considering and will not consider the policy outlined in that article today.

There will be thousands of stories between now and when the final report is released and unfortunately, like this one today, many of them will be incorrect.

The tax review is the most comprehensive in 50 years, and will recommend by year’s end ways to make our tax system simpler, fairer and more competitive.