More cops are landlords than lawyers

More emergency services workers negatively gear an investment property than lawyers, the latest Tax Office figures show.

But the data shows these police, firefighters and ambulance officers get half the benefit with an average of $745 compared with $1,500 for lawyers given they earn less.

Analysis of the ATO figures by the Grattan Institute finds the biggest winners from negative gearing are surgeons, who claim an average annual tax benefit of $3,586.

The ATO's annual statistics, released on Wednesday, also showed that the number of landlords stopped growing in 2015, as did the net rental losses claimed.

As mortgage interest rates have fallen, the average net loss on property investment has stabilised at between $8,000 and $10,000 a year. 

Of the nation's 2.05 million landlords, 1.3 million were negatively geared, including 58,000 teachers and one in five police officers, Mr Morrison told an urban development conference earlier this week.

"Two thirds of those taxpayers who negatively gear their investments have a taxable income of $80,000 or less," he said.

Grattan Institute chief executive John Daley pointed out said a higher proportion of doctors and lawyers negatively geared than teachers and nurses.

Not that full-time nurses should be cast as low-income earners, he added.

"If you have two people in a household who are both full-time nurses, actually you're in the top 10 percent of income-earners," he said.

"Those professions are quite well paid," he told Fairfax.

Fewer than 5 per cent of sales assistants, cleaners and hairdressers are negatively geared landlords.

Twenty per cent of lawyers are negatively geared, as are 21 percent of emergency services workers.