Every time a tax rule has a hard end date, the same question comes up: should I sell before it changes? This article won't answer that for you — nobody can, without knowing your full financial position — but it will explain exactly what the date means, so the question you take to your accountant is a sharp one.
What actually happens on the date, mechanically
1 July 2027 is not a deadline to sell. It's the day the 50% CGT discount stops applying and CPI indexation plus the 30% minimum tax start. For anything you already hold, the Act treats it as sold at market value just before that date and bought back at that value just after — a deemed disposal and reacquisition. The gain up to that point is calculated and deferred under the old discount rules; it is not taxed at the transition itself. The gain from that point forward, to your real eventual sale, is where indexation and the minimum tax apply.
That matters because it means holding through the transition date doesn't retroactively lose you the discount on growth that already happened. The discount on the pre-2027 portion of your gain is preserved by the deemed-disposal mechanism, not lost by waiting.
What a real sale before the date would actually achieve
If you sold and the sale genuinely completed before 1 July 2027, the whole gain (not just the pre-2027 portion) would be assessed under today's rules — the 50% discount, no minimum tax, no indexation. Whether that produces a better or worse outcome than holding depends entirely on:
- How much of your total expected gain has already happened, versus how much you expect to happen after 1 July 2027. Indexation only affects growth after that date.
- Your marginal tax rate, both now and at whatever point you'd otherwise sell. The worked examples in CPI Indexation vs the 50% CGT Discount show why this changes the answer — the minimum tax only bites below a 30% marginal rate.
- Whether selling now creates a tax bill you wouldn't otherwise have, and whether you have the cash to pay it, separate from whatever you do with the proceeds.
- Transaction costs and reinvestment risk — selling and buying back into a similar position (if that's even the plan) has real costs and real market-timing risk that have nothing to do with tax.
- Whether the asset is even one you want to sell, independent of tax. A tax rule changing is not a reason to sell something you'd otherwise keep, and it's not a reason to keep something you'd otherwise sell.
What this article is not
This is general information about what the law does. It is not a recommendation to sell, hold or do anything else with any asset, and nothing on this site will ever tell you to act by a particular date. Anyone who tells you with confidence that selling before 1 July 2027 is "obviously" the right or wrong call, without knowing your income, your other assets, your plans and your actual numbers, is guessing.
Where to actually get an answer
The CGT Calculator 2027 New Rules shows your specific gain under both the current rules and the new rules, using your own cost base and proceeds — that's the numbers half of the question. The judgement half — what to do with those numbers, given everything else about your situation — is what a registered tax agent or financial adviser is for.
Frequently Asked Questions
There's no deadline to sell anything. 1 July 2027 is when the tax treatment of growth changes, not a date by which you must transact. Take the time you need to get proper advice.
Selling and reacquiring triggers a real CGT event on the sale, taxed under whichever rules apply on the actual sale date, plus real transaction costs. It doesn't create the same effect as the Act's deemed disposal mechanism, which applies automatically to what you already hold without you doing anything.
Nothing forces a decision by the date. If you do nothing, the deemed-disposal mechanism applies automatically and the pre-2027 portion of your gain keeps the current rules regardless. Doing nothing is a valid outcome, not a missed deadline.
Yes — that's the point of this article. Bring the numbers from the calculator tools linked here; they'll be able to weigh them against everything else in your position that a general article can't know.