The ABC is explaining Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on stamp duty which is going to have some knock on effects:
The ACT Government could be liable to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars to home and land buyers after a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
A young couple who bought a block of land at Crace in Canberra’s north for $81,000 say they were promised as first home buyers that they would only need to pay a stamp duty of $20.
But their lawyer Allan Nelson says that is not what their bill came to.
“They got one great shock when later in the year it was assessed at almost $17,000,” Mr Nelson said
Yesterday the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth was asking what happens now:
“The Government needs to detail:
– How many people could be entitled to a similar stamp duty refund?
– How much will these refunds cost the ACT Government?
– And how was it that conflicting advice was given to eligible concession homebuyers?
It would be nice to think the Government had answers.
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Note that the decision was not on the basis of the conflicting advice. The people in question had bought a house-and-land package, and were assessed stamp duty on the basis that they’d bought both a house and land. The court ruled that since there were separate contracts, they had instead bought the land and built the house, so stamp duty was only payable on the land.
The ACT Revenue Commissioner should be sacked.
The only positive thing it the Katy’s finally seen the light and put all the defects into the Commerce and Works Directorate to try and quarantine the damage.