I’m loathe to keep talking about this, but I think Chris Luxon is being treated really unfairly on the sale of his apartment.

And because he’s being treated so unfairly, it’s hard to avoid saying something.

The latest instalment on this is a series of articles pointing out that Chris Luxon would’ve paid up to $70 thousand in tax on the sale of his apartment if it wasn’t for his government changing the bright-line test rules.

He bought the apartment in 2020 when the bright-line test was five years and because he sold it within five years, it should’ve been subject to the 5 year bright-line test and he should’ve paid a capital gains tax on it.

But his government cut the bright-line test back to 2 years, effective July this year, so he didn’t have to pay the tax.

The implication being that either by design or luck, he managed to dodge a tax he should've paid.

Honestly, give me a break.

The only reason Luxon is selling the apartment is because we’ve pressured him into moving into Premier House.

He didn’t want to move there, that was obvious, and why would he? The place is famously cold and drafty, and given that this guy’s been earning mega bucks for at least a couple of decades, he probably hasn’t lived in a house as cold as a student flat for a couple of decades.

But we gave him grief for not living there and taking the accommodation allowance instead, so he caved and said he’d move into Premier House.

And now that he’s doing that, we’re not happy either because he’s making money off his apartment.

Come on. What do we want here?

He isn’t costing the taxpayer on the accommodation allowance any more, he didn’t change the bright-line test so he could avoid tax – that was an election promise made last year when he clearly still intended to keep owning his property.

The absence of fairness in this ongoing drama suggest that this is exactly what he says this is, which is politics of envy.

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