NSW backtracks on duty abolition
June 2012
Authors
Peter Norman,
Claire Falkner
On 12 June 2012, it was announced in the NSW State Budget that the following heads of NSW stamp duty, which were due to be abolished as from 1 July 2012, will continue to be charged until 1 July 2013:
- transfer duty on unquoted marketable securities;
- transfer duty on non-real (ie, non-land) business assets; and
- mortgage duty.
This means that duty will continue to be charged on transactions involving:
- transfers of, or declarations of trust over:
- shares in unlisted companies registered in NSW;
- units in unit trusts scheme where the register is maintained in NSW or, if outside Australia, then the manager is a NSW company or natural person resident in NSW;
- goodwill and intellectual property (including patents and trademarks) of a business carried on in NSW;
- statutory licences or permissions granted under Commonwealth law and exercised in respect of NSW;
- statutory licences, permissions or poker machine entitlements granted under NSW law; and
- financings where security is granted over property wholly or partly in NSW, or the making of further advances where such mortgage or charge has already been granted.
This follows recent similar announcements by Queensland, the Northern Territories and South Australia, each of which has postponed the abolition of conveyance duties on certain non-real assets.
The NSW announcement included mention of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations entered into between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories of Australia (which commenced on 1 July 2009), and under which all parties agreed to the abolition, by 1 July 2013, of duty on transfers of all marketable securities and on non-real non-residential conveyances. NSW’s deferral of the abolition to 1 July 2013 remains within the terms of that agreement, but none of Queensland, the Northern Territories or South Australia have provided a revised date for the abolition of their remaining heads of duty which fall to be abolished under the agreement.
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