The Government may consider tax changes to encourage the seismic-strengthening of residential properties, but is not providing further details on what that could entail.
The idea was listed second among more than 70 possible initiatives for the next 18 months in a tax policy work programme released by Revenue Minister Stuart Nash.
A spokeswoman for Nash said she could not provide any additional information, saying it was "very much a scoping exercise at the moment".
She would not comment on whether tax incentives could be considered for owners of standalone homes to fix quake risks such as unreinforced masonry chimneys or faulty foundations.
But Geraldine Murphy, deputy chairman of lobby group Inner City Wellington, said she believed the focus should be supporting apartment owners who had been given no choice but to pay for seismic strengthening.
Inner City Wellington has been calling for rebates for the owners-occupiers of hundreds of Wellington apartments who it estimates face an average bill of more than $270,000 to upgrade their quake-prone apartments to meet mandatory council requirements.
Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton said it supported initiatives to make New Zealand more resilient to earthquake risks "as we are one of the riskiest countries in the world for the size of our economy to seismic events."
"We have no insight into what is specifically being considered, but know that tax is often used as a means to encourage or discourage certain activities."
PWC tax partner Geof Nightingale, who sat on the Tax Working Group (TWG) chaired by Sir Michael Cullen, said he was surprised to see residential seismic strengthening mentioned in the Government's tax work programme.
"I was delighted to see that they are going to do some work on seismic because I think it is a real problem."
The TWG recommended the Government consider changing tax depreciation rules to make the seismic strengthening of industrial and commercial property and residential apartment blocks more attractive to building owners.
"It would be nice to know more" about what the Government was considering, he said.
Murphy said changing depreciation rules would be "great" but there had to be additional help for owner occupiers living a body-corporate environment who could not avoid big bills.
"It is about recognising that private residential home owners are funding this burden, which is primarily driven by public safety, and getting no recompense for it.
"If you make donations to charitable institutions you get 33 per back automatically if you claim it from Inland Revenue. Why aren't we thinking that approach?"
National Party revenue spokesman Andrew Bayly said he intended to question the Government for more information on what it was considering.
- Stuff
