I find it interesting how we determine what is "fair".
Being self-employed, I'm able to reduce my tax bill by claiming as expenses household bills that relate to the areas of the house I use to run the business (a Bedroom I use as an office, the Dining Room used for collating documents and meeting clients and part of the garage used for storing old job files, accounts and samples of things like roof and wall claddings, bench tops etc.). Because the space I use is around 15% of the house, that means I can claim 15% of the rates, mortgage interest (if we had a mortgage on the property), insurances, phone etc.
My wife works from home three days a week, but she is not allowed to reduce her tax bill by 5% of those same costs (based on the amount of the house she's using when she works from home).
Because I run a business from home, is it fair that I have a tax advantage over salaried workers who are taxed via PAYE working from home?
As a landlord, I'm still able to deduct the full cost of insurance, bulk water charges, non-capital repairs and maintenance, and rates. But, a houseowner (who doesn't run their business from home) can't. The only thing I couldn't deduct was interest on the rental.
It seems to me that Labour's policy about interest deduction and the increase of the Brightline tax period had nothing to do with what I could deduct compared to an owner/occupier (otherwise they would have also stopped me being able to deduct insurance, rates, etc.) or how long I owned the property, but their way of introducing a tax on capital gain on investment properties while not having a CGT.