"Who's Side Are You On, Claude?" Self-Described Tech Entrepreneur Asks After Bot Says Jim's New CGT Laws Won't Really Affect Him At All

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A French Quarter entrepreneur who has spent the better part of this week warning his LinkedIn network about the devastating impact of the Albanese government's new capital gains tax laws has been informed by a second-string artificial intelligence chatbot that he will be, financially speaking, completely fine.

Shane Gibbons, a 34-year-old local man with a vision who's developing a cat litter subscription app he values at $50 million, told colleagues at his WeWork hot desk on Thursday morning that Treasurer Jim Chalmers' Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026 amounted to "basically communism" and would cost him "47 percent of everything".

Seeking to quantify the damage, Shane woke up Claude, set him to Opus and asked it to run the numbers against the actual legislation, which he downloaded from the APH website.

On Shane's one-third share of a $50 million valuation, split between his various hypothetical angel investors and hypothetical partners, a $16.67 million capital gain, the French robot calculated his tax bill at roughly $4.14 million under current laws, leaving him with $12.53 million. Under the new laws, after 1 July 2027, he was shocked to learn his calculated tax bill at approximately $4.14 million, leaving him with $12.53 million.

The difference was zero dollars.

"Who's side are you on, Claude? You stupid French cunt!" Shane said.

What Shane had not mentioned to Claude and what Claude therefore did not factor in, is that Shane is not a full-time entrepreneur. Shane is a senior auditor at KPMG Betoota's French Quarter office, where he earns $167,000 a year plus super on a PAYG salary with full superannuation and an annual leave balance he has not touched since 2022. He uses the WeWork for less than six hours a week but feels he can't be a genuine start up without having a hot desk. And ss a salaried employee, Shane will in fact receive a $250 Working Australians Tax Offset under the same laws he has been campaigning vocally against all week.

Shane did not find this funny.

But Shane's outrage is not unique. Since the bill's introduction, Australia's two largest media companies, News Corp and Nine Entertainment Co, have mounted sustained editorial campaigns against the government's proposed property tax reforms, warning of devastation for ordinary Australians and catastrophic consequences for the housing market. What both companies have been less vocal about is their respective financial exposures to a downturn in residential property investment.

News Corp's REA Group operates realestate.com.au. Nine Entertainment Co owns Domain. Together the two platforms generate billions in annual revenue, derived almost entirely from a high-volume residential property market driven by active investors buying and selling established dwellings. The bill's negative gearing changes, which quarantine losses on established residential properties acquired after 7:30pm on 12 May 2026, would, if sustained, meaningfully reduce transaction volumes and listing revenues for both platforms.

Neither company has disclosed this as a relevant consideration in their editorial coverage because fuck you. The bill's actual targets are considerably less LinkedIn-active than Shane-o.

Australians who own multiple established investment properties acquired before the May 2026 budget will lose the ability to offset rental losses against their salary income, a concession that has allowed high income earners like sanctimonious doctors and their wanker barrister cousins to significantly reduce their taxable income for decades. It's not the government paying for it, it's cunts like you and Shane.

Back to Shane, his cat litter app currently has three users. One is his mum. Another is a journalist who signed up to fact-check the product and has since received eleven push notifications about premium litter boxes. The app has not disrupted the cat litter industry.

The Advocate contacted News Corp and Nine Entertainment Co for comment but neither responded.

More to come.