The treasurer has hit out at "misinformation" fuelling a backlash against the government's budget tax changes.
Jim Chalmers has been forced onto the defensive by a growing campaign, led by young startup founders, who claim Labor's move to pare back the 50 per cent capital gains discount will effectively double their tax bill when they sell their companies.
"By removing the CGT discount on shares, and replacing it with a cost base indexation scheme, you have clocked us with a massive tax hit and then come up with a replacement that will make things even worse," 40 business owners under 40 said in an open letter to the prime minister.
"Rather than back us, you have ambushed us with a massive tax increase, a tax that will hit us, the Australians we hire, and the investors who believe in us, the hardest."
