There’s a meme doing the rounds introducing Anthony Albanese as a 47% stakeholder in people’s businesses.

Now... I love a good meme. And some of these people do look like they’re having an absolute riot with it.

But for anyone wondering, that isn’t actually what the budget change means.

The rough claim goes something like "you build a business, sell it one day, and Albo storms in like a silent partner and grabs 47%."

That is not what has been announced.

What the budget actually does is replace the 50% CGT discount with cost-base indexation and a 30% minimum tax on real capital gains from 1 July 2027.

In plain gherkin, that means capital gains will be taxed differently in future, based more on the gain above inflation, with a floor of 30% on real gains. It is not “the government now owns 47% of your business.”

That 47% number people are waving around is basically the top marginal tax rate including Medicare levy. It is not some kind of government shareholding.

It also ignores the fact that the budget papers say the effective tax rate on nominal capital gains under the new indexed system would vary depending on the asset, holding period, inflation and your tax rate... and for typical examples in Treasury’s own table, the effective rate is often well below 47%. For a property held 5 years, Treasury’s example puts the effective rate at 27.3% for someone on the top marginal rate... for a 10-year hold it is 30.1%.

It also ignores a very inconvenient detail for the meme merchants that the budget papers say the four existing small business CGT concessions remain unchanged.

The separate small business fact sheet says the government will maintain existing CGT concessions for small businesses, including concessions that can halve or even disregard CGT on eligible assets. So the blanket “Albo now takes 47% when you sell your business” line is sloppy.

So what does it mean?

It means the government is trying to make the tax treatment of capital gains a bit less flattering compared with wages, and a bit less generous as a tax shelter. You can agree with that or disagree with it. You can argue it discourages investment, or argue it makes the system fairer. Fine. That’s a real debate.

But saying “Albo is now a 47% shareholder in my business” is a meme, not a policy description.

What’s happened is a change to future capital gains tax treatment, not the government taking an equity stake in or taxing 47% to your plumbing company, cleaning business, gym, roofing business, or bra shop.

So enjoy the meme. Have the laugh. Sorry to be the dampener of laughs, but here we are.