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FACT SHEET
DUTIES AMENDMENT BILL 2009
· The Duties Amendment Bill 2009 amends the Duties Act 2001 to implement
the Government's 2009-10 Budget initiative to abolish duty on agreements for
sale.
· The Bill provides for the abolition of duty on agreements for sale entered into
after 1 July 2009. Specifically, the amendments remove agreements for sale
under section 6(1)(b) of the Duties Act 2001.
· This reduces the cost of compliance as the level of record keeping is
significantly reduced and removes the possibility of uninformed taxpayers
being subject to double duty.
· The liability for duty on a dutiable transaction is payable by the taxpayer after
a transaction is complete. Specifically, the amendments will result in duty:
- being payable only on the transfer where a transaction involves both an
agreement for sale and a transfer;
- not being payable until the transfer has been executed for off-the-plan sales
or conditional sales; and
- being payable within three months of the transfer or other dutiable transaction
occurring.
· Anti-avoidance provisions are included in the Bill to ensure that duty is
captured on any sub-sales that occur following an initial agreement for sale
and prior to the actual transfer of the dutiable property. This ensures the
equitable treatment of all taxpayers.
· The Bill adopts equivalent provisions from the Victorian duties legislation. As a
result, the Tasmanian legislation is aligned with that of Victoria which also
does not impose duty on agreements for sale.
· The Bill also includes transitional provisions to ensure that any obligation to
pay or refund duty that exist prior to 1 July 2009 will be treated under the
existing provisions of the Duties Act.