The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has just released its 2010-11 Taxation Statistics, which once again revealed Australia is a nation of loss-making landlords, with both the number of property investors and the amount of tax losses increasing over the tax year.
According to the ATO, there were 1,811,174 property investors in Australia in 2010-11, up from 1,751,679 in 2009-10 (see next chart).
The number of property investors claiming losses also rose to 1,213,597 in 2010-11, up from 1,110,920 in 2009-10, representing two-thirds of all property investors. Meanwhile, total income losses for all property investors was $7,862 million in 2010-11 (up from $4,810 million in 2009-10), whereas total losses for negatively geared investors were $13,285 million in 2010-11 (up from $10,144 million in 2009-10):
Some more interesting (worrying?) facts can be deduced from the above data:
- 1 in 7 Australian taxpayers are a property investor (either negatively geared or positively geared);
- 1 in 10 Australian taxpayers are negatively geared;
- The average income loss for all property investors in 2010-11 was $4,341, up from $2,746 in 2009-10;
- The average income loss for negatively geared property investors in 2010-11 was $10,947, up from $9,132 in 2009-10; and
- 72% of negatively geared investors (877,694 in total) earned less than $80,000 in 2010-11.
An in-depth report will be provided in the MB members report for May.
