After months of talk about negative gearing, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out making any changes to the tax measure used by millions of Australians. "The thing that worries me about so many of the contributions to our national conversation is that in the end they're all about increasing taxes," Abbott told reporters on Thursday. "The government I lead wants taxes to be lower, simpler, fairer."

His remarks came after an Australian Council of Social Service report called for restrictions on negative gearing, saying that wealthy people should stop being able to claim deductions against investments which aren't making actual losses, and proposed that the deductions are quarantined. "If the Government rules out changes now, what was the point of the so-called tax Discussion Paper? Is the discussion about negative gearing and capital gains over already?"said ACOSS chief Cassandra Goldie.

ATO data shows that 1.3 million landlords claimed almost $14 billion in tax losses that offset the tax owed on their other income in 2011-12, and the average loss made per property in 2011-12 was $10,894, but this loss more than doubled for people earning over $180,000 to $22,772, reports The Australian Financial Review.