Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn backs in capital gains tax changes but calls for carve-outs

The boss of Australia’s biggest lender has backed in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ controversial capital gains tax reforms but has urged the Federal Government to reconsider attaching them to assets outside of real estate.

Two weeks after Dr Chalmers’ delivered his radical Budget agenda to shake-up the tax, Matt Comyn has now emerged as one of the most prominent cheerleaders of the plan.

But Mr Comyn — who has previously voiced his support for changes to CGT on investment properties — hinted inclusion of so-called passive investments in a return to the old indexation model to determine tax liability should not be swept up in the reforms.

“There’s a big difference in my mind between sort of passive asset accumulation versus productive capital or risk taking,” he told ABC’s 7.30 on Tuesday night.

“If I’m just accumulating an asset and I’m passively holding that versus I’m investing in a startup, a founder, a business, a junior explorer, I think that’s quite different, and I don’t think we want to change the incentives towards risk and enterprise and innovation.”

The Government this week said it was already looking at carve-outs provisions for startups and some other sectors to cushion the blow.

But Mr Coymn did applaud the Government for its Budget cuts amid “a completely changed geopolitical and strategic environment”.

“We are in a structural deficit, which means our expenses exceed our revenue,” he said.

“I think the Government have looked at that, and look, you could make a case to say that actually Australia’s debt at a government level is one of the lowest of advanced economies.

“I think they’re doing the right thing by reducing some of the pressures on the Budget from a fiscal perspective for a couple of reasons.

“One, we both know that that’s effectively a tax on future generations, and secondly, you lose degrees of freedom to be able to respond to a shock.”

The Government is set to introduce its proposed changes to Parliament on Thursday, which it claims will to make it easier for more first-homebuyers to enter the market.

Under the amendments, negative gearing would be limited to new homes from July 2027, while the 50 per cent discount on CGT would be replaced by a rate based on inflation from the same time period.