Portfolio — 10 April 2026

The Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, released draft legislation on 10 April to tighten the foreign resident capital gains tax regime, the most significant tax integrity measure from his office in this period [TA-260410-treasu-b29780f9e13a]. The draft clarifies that CGT applies to foreign investors disposing of assets with a close economic connection to Australian land and natural resources — a targeted move to close a gap that has allowed structuring arguments to reduce or eliminate Australian tax liability on resource and land-linked gains [TA-260410-treasu-b29780f9e13a].

A central technical fix addresses the longstanding ambiguity created by the absence of a clear statutory definition of real property and the interaction of Commonwealth CGT rules with state and territory severance provisions, which have allowed taxpayers to argue that severed assets — for example, mining rights separated from the underlying land under state property law — fall outside the foreign resident CGT regime; the draft overrides that argument by establishing a Commonwealth-law definition of in-scope assets [TA-260410-treasu-b29780f9e13a].

The legislation also includes a time-limited, targeted concession for foreign investment in renewable energy, reflecting a deliberate policy balance: the Treasurer's media release frames the concession as supporting clean energy investment while requiring foreign investors to pay a fair share of tax on other gains [TA-260410-treasu-b29780f9e13a]. Dr Chalmers placed the measure within the government's broader fiscal and productivity framework, citing the Capacity Investment Scheme, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's Rewiring the Nation Fund, and the Investor Front Door as companion instruments supporting productivity-enhancing investment [TA-260410-treasu-b29780f9e13a].

That framing connects this tax integrity measure to a pattern evident since the February budget, where cost-of-living relief and surplus delivery were presented as twin fiscal anchors; today's CGT reform extends that framework into the revenue-protection domain, signalling that budget sustainability remains a live organising theme for the Treasurer's legislative agenda heading into the second quarter of 2026.