Alexander Sandy Milne

I strongly disagree with your correspondent Keith Melville’s (Beacon, February 4) letter, “Labour’s capital gains tax: A Deceptive Trojan horse”.

A Trojan horse is “a person or thing intended to undermine or secretly overthrow a person or opponent”.  

Mr Melville’s use of those words is misplaced. There is nothing secretive about Labour’s plan.

Labour’s long-overdue CGT is simply a way of getting wealthy property owners to pay a tax on their unearned income/profits.  

Most of us have been paying taxes on money earned by working hard for employers for decades: in my case for 73 of my 91 years.  

I had a “poor diddums” moment when I read Mr Melville’s tale of “risks and sacrifices you have to make in your journey to property ownership”.

These guys already own properties or wealth. They want more, and a luxurious retirement, with the poorer residents funding it.  

They bought up rental housing big time and in doing so pushed the prices well above what honest workers can pay.  

If the landlords get a bank loan ... no worries. Tenants repay it and at the end of 20 or so years the owners possess another house off the back of less wealthy workers, who frequently do not even get on the first step of the “own-your-own-home” ladder.

Labour under Jacinda Ardern should have followed her Government’s April 2019 Tax Working Group’s recommendation for a CGT.  

But even then, the fat cats had already permanently screwed up the New Zealand housing market.

I own a rental property and want to sell it, but won’t do so yet, because the market has led it to be over-valued and an unfair burden for working people.  

I have been renting it out to Whakatāne Hospital staff at mates’ rates for 12 years, hoping to set a trend. (No chance).  

Despite my greatly reduced rental income I have gained much for too little effort. That was never my intention or hope.

Next time our council discusses multi-million dollar War Memorial Hall tart-ups etc, they should give a thought to building low-cost rental property instead.

For the record, capital gains taxes  are paid in the US, UK, Canada, France, Australia, Germany, Japan, China, India and Brazil.

It’s time New Zealand caught up.