In the lead up to the 2019 federal election, RMIT ABC Fact Check examines how tax data is being used in the public policy debate.

Given the developments in the Australian property market since 2015-16, and the repeated claims from Federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg and others, that reform of the negative gearing policy would have severe negative impacts, this report argues that it's time to revisit the policy, in light of the current state of the Australian property market.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg claims that two-thirds of people who use negative gearing have a taxable income of less than $80,000 a year.

The Morrison Government is keen to highlight the number of people who negatively gear but this hides where most of the benefit is going. There are a small number of high income property investors who are negatively gearing large numbers of properties or expensive properties.

This study focused on the Australian private rental sector including formal rules (policies and regulation); organisations and structures; and informal rules (social norms and practices), and reviewed the sector in ten countries.