[dvsfish]

In the context of Australia, voting is mandatory if you're >=18yo.

We also have very unusual tax laws around owning a rental called negative gearing- if you're a landlord and your rental property earns less than it costs to run it, you can subtract the difference from your taxable income and pay less tax, as if having a tenant pay off most of your mortgage wasn't enough of a free lunch.

A political contest vowing to get rid of this nonsense was annihilated when we tried it one election cycle around a decade ago.

[zo1]

That's not unusual at all, and calling it "negative gearing" is just a way to target it as if it's some evil concept.

Afaik, everywhere in the world taxes on businesses are applied to profits not revenue. Subtracting your loss is completely normal. It's personal taxes that applies to your salary aka revenue that is weird and modern day serfdom.

[siquick]

> and calling it "negative gearing" is just a way to target it as if it's some evil concept.

That’s what the tax office call it.

https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/investments-...

[ffgjgf1]

> aka revenue that is weird and modern day serfdom.

Not really, though. Businesses have inherent incentives to minimize their costs. Individuals don’t, in fact it’s closer to being the opposite.

So the “revenue” tax approach is perfectly rational and reasonable (relatively to taxing personal “net income”)

> businesses are applied to profits not revenue

Yes, if your rental business was a separate entity it would make perfect sense. Subtracting your business costs from personal income isn’t quite that though