It’s time to ditch the double tax on home insurance
RACQ has renewed its calls for the next State Government to remove stamp duty on home insurance, or at a minimum, spend the collected tax on building disaster resilience.
Almost 60% of people in RACQ’s State Election Priorities survey placed ‘Ditch the double tax on insurance’ in their top five priorities and it ranked as the third most important priority for those living in regional Queensland.
Queensland homeowners are paying 9% stamp duty on top of 10% GST on their insurance - for a $3,000 home and contents policy, that means approximately $500 is tax.
RACQ General Manager Advocacy Joshua Cooney said it was clear the State Government must rethink the 9% stamp duty.
“The double tax on insurance is hurting hard-working Queenslanders at a time when household budgets are really feeling cost-of-living pressures,” Mr Cooney said.
“Stamp duty on home insurance is a bad, inefficient tax that restricts Queenslanders from fully protecting their most valuable asset.
“The next Queensland Government should get rid of it, or at the very least, use the revenue to fund risk-reducing disaster mitigation that will directly benefit those in areas that face the most risk and ultimately reduce premiums.”
The Queensland Government now collects more than $1.4 billion a year from stamp duty on insurance, doubling over the past decade.
“For those in areas at high risk of flood and cyclone, insurance premiums are higher and so too is insurance tax,” Mr Cooney said.
“It’s never been more important for homeowners to have the right coverage and unfortunately, these taxes may be forcing people to reduce or ditch their insurance altogether.”
Mr Cooney said there were a number of ways governments could invest in reducing the risk and improving affordability.
“Building levees, improving drainage, expanding home buybacks and giving homeowners a helping hand to improve their homes like raising and retrofitting are some ways the government could ‘spend it where you collect it’,” he said.
“We need to continue working with government to build stronger homes, particularly in regional areas so we can reduce or prevent the impacts of these catastrophic events when they occur.”
The Club has called for a significant boost to the Household Resilience Program (cyclone) and the Resilient Homes Fund (flood) in its State Election Priorities.
“Since the inception of the Household Resilience Program, more than 4,400 homes have had improvements like roof upgrades, braced garage doors and window protection put in place,” Mr Cooney said.
“For Queensland to become the most climate resilient state in Australia we need better forward-planning from all levels of government and for these disaster mitigation programs to be expanded.”
Fixing the Bruce Highway and fairer fuel prices ranked first and second respectively in RACQ’s State Election poll amongst those in regional Queensland.
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