Duties Amendment Bill 2008

The Duties Amendment Bill 2008, introduced into the Victorian Parliament on 2 December 2008, could have a significant impact on the stamp duty costs associated with property transactions in Victoria from 21 November 2008.

Ramifications of the proposed measures

If the Bill is enacted in its current form, the ramifications for transactions connected with property in Victoria include:

• Imposition of duty on dutiable leases at the market value of the underlying land
• Owners or vendors of land may now also be liable on a surrender/extinguishment of dutiable property
• Potential imposition of duty on an agreement for the sale of land as well as on the transfer of land at settlement
• Potential imposition of duty on dealings in a trust which holds Victorian land, even if the trust is not "land rich"
• Significant impact on cash flow with duty payable within 14 days instead of the current three months
• The effective re-introduction of stamp duty on certain lease arrangements.

Most importantly, with the amendments applying retrospectively from 21 November 2008, some transactions would already be caught.

The Bill will be further debated at the next sitting of Victorian Parliament in early February 2009, and PricewaterhouesCoopers is actively lobbying to have the Bill withdrawn or substantially amended.