Transfer of car between family members

I’d write up a receipt for the “sale” of the vehicle for $200 lol. Take that in and pay $6 and what can they do about it?

To be honest, what is the point of this stamp duty to begin with? I can understand a small fee to cover the admin costs of processing a change, but a tax on a percentage of the value of the vehicle? What business is it of the Government if I sell my car to somebody else? Other than them providing registration services and recovering costs for that, what difference does it make whether it’s an old Excel or a new Veyron? Either way makes no difference to the government in this regard, we already pay registration!

Antagonist said :

Masquara said :

If you undervalue the car by more than about 15 per cent, they have the option of charging you stamp duty on their assessment of market value. You might get away with it – but you might not!

I have bought and sold more cars over the years than I care to count. Unless it is a $1 Ferrari, they won’t do squat. And you will be guaranteed to get the usual terrible service as well.

Never ever had a problem with devaluing a car heavily to save on stamp duty. The person at the front desk is more interested in the next smoko than figuring out how much a car’s market value is.

Masquara said :

dkNigs said :

I have never ever heard of anyone having them charge duty at market value. Just “sell” it to her for a small amount. You’d be a sap to put the real value of the car.

Also did you have your wife as the secondary owner of the vehicle? Could definitely help. I’m the primary owner of my wifes car (numberplate transfer to her name was $700), but she’s still the secondary.

If you undervalue the car by more than about 15 per cent, they have the option of charging you stamp duty on their assessment of market value. You might get away with it – but you might not!

Even selling a car for a few grand means the duty is still under $100. Yeah annoying I guess and a fixed transfer fee IMO would be a better option. They could then have a luxury car transfer duty if they really want to keep making money and just charge everyone else $50 to transfer a car.

After reading again, did you get this advice over the phone? They often err on the side of caution when giving advice over the phone. Better that customers get a pleasant surprise rather than a nasty one when they turn up to do the paperwork.
Go in, be nice, try to get one of the younger girls behind the counter (least likely to be a power tripper).
I transferred a set of number plates recently and wasn’t hit with the fee I was expecting.

Wasn’t the car “damaged and in poor mechanical condition” when you “sold” it to her?

I’ve never had my value questioned, and you don’t want to know how many cars I’ve put through that place.

Another option could be to add her as a secondary owner, then after a couple of months remove yourself.

Masquara said :

If you undervalue the car by more than about 15 per cent, they have the option of charging you stamp duty on their assessment of market value. You might get away with it – but you might not!

I have bought and sold more cars over the years than I care to count. Unless it is a $1 Ferrari, they won’t do squat. And you will be guaranteed to get the usual terrible service as well.

dkNigs said :

I have never ever heard of anyone having them charge duty at market value. Just “sell” it to her for a small amount. You’d be a sap to put the real value of the car.

Also did you have your wife as the secondary owner of the vehicle? Could definitely help. I’m the primary owner of my wifes car (numberplate transfer to her name was $700), but she’s still the secondary.

If you undervalue the car by more than about 15 per cent, they have the option of charging you stamp duty on their assessment of market value. You might get away with it – but you might not!

Welcome to Canberra. And remember – keep in the left lane at all times and tell your ex that too as I have no doubt neither of you know how to drive.

I have never ever heard of anyone having them charge duty at market value. Just “sell” it to her for a small amount. You’d be a sap to put the real value of the car.

Also did you have your wife as the secondary owner of the vehicle? Could definitely help. I’m the primary owner of my wifes car (numberplate transfer to her name was $700), but she’s still the secondary.

“Is there any way around this? I find it ludicrous that we paid $1,000 stamp duty for the car when we got it, and now we will have to pay stamp duty AGAIN to put it in her name.”

How else do you expect ACT Govco to pay for Gungahlin’s trams? The money has to come from somewhere.

The are sections in the Duties Act that allows for a exemption of stamp duty when there is a family court order or termination agreement. This includes your house. Why don’t you wait to get those finalised before you commence transferring all of your assets otherwise you’d be liable for stamp duty..

They have to have the stamp duty in there, otherwise people would offload their cars to extended family members to avoid paying it.
Its interesting they haven’t gone the same route with car stamp duty as they have with houses ie get rid of it and put up rego fees. Then again car rego is ridiculous these days mostly due to the insurance component.

Wouldn’t it be more sensible to wait until the divorce and have the transfer waived under s213 (assuming this is what this section refers to). This also assumes that relations between the OP and his separated wife are still reasonable.

tactless said :

If we take it out to other instances where stamp duty is payable, is it also reasonable or possible for me to transfer full ownership of my house to my wife without having her having to pay stamp duty again?

A transfer is a transfer, so I don’t see what this guy’s whingeing about – he wants to transfer his car to his wife and he’s whingeing about the fees everybody else has to pay.

Exceptionalism is the curse of the 21st century.

“Oh, but I’m special, why do I have to follow the rules…?”.

Unless it is a transfer as a result of death or a court ordered property settlement, you are unable to remove a person from the registration records without paying 1.5% stamp duty, I believe this might be the ‘certain personal circumstances’ referred to in #1
The view held by ACT Revenue (correctly or not) is that one person is buying out the other share and therefore liable for stamp duty. If we take it out to other instances where stamp duty is payable, is it also reasonable or possible for me to transfer full ownership of my house to my wife without having her having to pay stamp duty again?

I’m sure you can have two names listed on the papers as owners, most likely requiring you to be at the same address. If you had have this in place before updating you’re details, you would have simply removed your name, then car is hers.

I had to go through this a while back when I inadvertently discovered I was listed as a registered operator of my ex-wife’s car (this happened while at the shopfront changing my address details on my licence).

I alerted my ex to the situation (neither of us were aware) and said I’d sign or do whatever she needed. She did the legwork, but she didn’t have to pay any fees to the best of my knowledge. Our divorce isn’t finalised yet, so I’m not sure what proof (if any) she had to show to remove my name from her rego. And from memory I didn’t need to sign anything, although it might have been included in a list of items on our settlement docs, I can’t recall.

Perhaps it may be different, too, when it’s simply removing a name from the registration, as opposed to a full transfer from one name to another.

Our new car a few years ago was registered in my name only, and when I was paying the rego the next year I asked if it could be in both names. I was told I would have to pay stamp duty. It is still in my name only.

My nephew who has just turned 25 tried to claim the “good driver discount” when he renewed his licence last week.
He has never had a traffic infringement but the discount was not calculated in his renewal fee.
When he went to a shopfront to pay the renewal he asked why he had not received the discount. The staff sort of laughed because they had never dealt with a young driver who hadn’t had a least one fine in their first years of driving.
After reviewing his claim they said he had missed out by two days as he hadn’t held a full licence for the full qualifying period. This is despite the conditions advise by RTA on the web saying that if someone had transitioned from a provisional licence to a full licence in the period the discount would apply. The shopfront didn’t have such information and they refused to extend the discount so he had to pay the full amount.
He has since contacted the RTA and they are sending him the discount which is rightfully his.
ACT Government shopfront staff are simply poorly informed. I avoid them as much as possible.

This is a good example of a bureaucracy that lacks common sense. Stupid policies such as this just encourage a situation where cars are driven by people who don’t legally own them.

The same situation occurs with transferring non standard numberplates between family members cars. Prior to the current ACT Government coming to power the transfer of rights to plates fee was waived for family members living at the same address. Not any longer. This has resulted in all 6 of the cars in our family being in my name even though I never ever drive 4 of them.

Have a look at s213 of the Duties Act 1999 and Revenue Circular DAA009 – they seem to refer to just such a situation. The circular says:
ACT Government Shopfronts have been authorised by the Commissioner to process applications for duty exemption under the following exemption categories: …
(h) section 213—vehicle registration transfers relating to certain personal relationships;

Try printing this out and and going back to the shopfront armed with the information.

HTH