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Reserve Bank imposes Auckland-targeted investor rules – and drops heavy hint to the taxman
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Today's Reserve Bank financial stability report is a 62- page heavy-handed hint to Inland Revenue.
As signalled by NBR ONLINE earlier this week, the Reserve Bank is targeting property investors in the Auckland region. Such investors will have to have a deposit of 30% of the value of the property.
That is aimed at all property investors in the Auckland Council area, with the exception of those investors building new houses.
In a partially compensating move, the existing "speed limit" for high loan-to-value ratio (LVR) lending outside Auckland will be adjusted from 10% to 15%, although the 10% will remain for loans to owner-occupied houses in Auckland with mortgages of greater than 80% of the value of the house.
The measures will take effect from October 1 but, in the meantime, banks are warned to keep within the spirit of the rules and not engage in a splurge of lending to beat the changes.
The new rules are effectively an extension of the loan-to-value ratio restrictions implemented nationally from October 2013. Those rules were effective for a time, the report released this morning says, but that effectiveness is now waning and in any case the big danger to the stability and wellbeing of the financial system is the Auckland property investor market.
The subtext of much of the analysis of the Auckland property market, contained in today's report, is plain: these investments are being made with the intention of selling for capital gain and therefore the capital gain should, under existing Income Tax Act rules, be included in property investors' income and taxed accordingly.
Many property investors already do this and Inland Revenue has been going after those who do not with increasing vigour since 2007.
Today's report stresses the risk the recent Auckland property frenzy puts the country's entire economic system under.
"Rising price-to-income ratios suggest new buyers in Auckland are becoming more indebted relative to their incomes than previous buyers.
"Another characteristic of the Auckland market has been increased investor purchases over the past year at the same time that rental yields have reached record lows." Surveys of house price inflation expectations show much higher expectations among Auckland property investors, the report says.
"Relatively strong capital gain expectations amongst Auckland investors may explain why they are willing to accept such low rental yields."
In other words, the properties are being bought for capital gain.
"Around half of investor commitments are at loan-to-value ratios of more than 70%. Preliminary Reserve Bank survey data suggests investors tend to make greater use of interest-only loans, which may partly reflect investors' ability to offset mortgage expenses against personal income for tax purposes."
The Reserve Bank is not a tax collector: its primary focus, in this context, is its responsibility for the stability of New Zealand's financial system.
That was made clear in today's report: New Zealand avoided a property "bust" during the global financial crisis but those countries that did have such a collapse are a warning to what could happen here.
"International evidence suggests that high debt-to-income owner occupied and leveraged investors both have relatively high default rates during severe housing downturns. As a result, the potential for a sharp correction in Auckland house prices to cause a significant rise in bank loan loss has increased since the last report."
It has been a theme of Reserve Bank executives over recent weeks that all factors, not just housing supply, need to be addressed if the Auckland property maelstrom is not to destabilise the economy.
Deputy governor Grant Spencer last month caused something of a furore when he delivered a speech suggesting all factors driving the recent surge in house prices, including the intention to sell properties for capital gain, should be taken into account by the government.
Although Mr Spencer did not advocate a capital gains tax – despite many excitable politicians and commentators suggesting he did – the deputy governor did say the government needs to look at its treatment of capital gains.
Existing rules are based on an "intentions test" – whether a buyer intends to sell a property for capital gain at the time it is bought.
The undercurrent of the Reserve Bank's report today is that, if one looks at the overall data, it is difficult not to conclude many of the purchases being made are with the clear intentions of selling for capital gain.
The existing rules have been enforced with increased enthusiasm, as well as additional resources, since the middle of the previous decade. The last Labour government threw the IRD an extra $14.6 million to enforce the rules in 2007: in 2010 the current government doubled that funding.
Two weeks ago Finance Minister Bill English hinted there could be more funding coming in this year's budget – to be delivered next Thursday – for enforcing the existing rules.
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发表于 2015-5-13 10:49:50
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