Andrew Leigh

The largest measured tax expenditures are the concessional capital gains taxation of owner-occupied housing (E4 and E5) which is estimated to provide a benefit to taxpayers of around $40 billion in 2010-11. Together, these tax expenditures represent the exemption of owner-occupied housing from CGT. After the owner-occupied housing exemption, the next largest tax expenditure is the concessional taxation of employer contributions to superannuation (C5) of around $14.3 billion in 2010-11. This is followed by the concessional taxation of superannuation entity earnings (C6) and the GST-free status of food (H28). These tax expenditures are estimated to provide benefits to taxpayers in 2010-11 of around $12.2 billion and $5.9 billion respectively. ...

There are a number of tax expenditures for which an estimate is not available but which have been assigned an order of magnitude classification (for details refer to Chapter 3). The largest such tax expenditures are as follows: philanthropy — income tax exemption for charitable, religious, scientific, and community service entities (B72); income tax exemption for Commonwealth, State and Territory public authorities, and State and Territory entities (B3); and quarantining of capital losses (E31).