Australia’s recent housing tax reforms are the biggest changes to property investment taxes this century. Some commentary is framing the changes as heavily detrimental to housing investors, but our research estimates a much softer impact is likely. 

Using data from 920,000 individual housing investments held between 2008 and 2025, we simulated the tax reform to estimate how many investors would have paid more tax. 

We find that: 

• Taxes rise for only about half of property investments.  

• Most negatively geared investors don’t face more tax in dollar terms but do in present value terms. This is because rental losses are still fully deductible but cannot be claimed until later, when the investor sells. 

• Capital gains tax (CGT) falls for most. Most past investments have been below the return threshold above which the 50% discount beats the new inflation deduction. 

• Government revenue rises substantially. Almost all the increase comes from the top 20% of investments by performance, whose CGT rises the most. 

• High leverage investors and retirees (those with close to zero income) are the most likely to pay more tax. 

• Investment risk decreases as tax is now better aligned with the size of the gain.