State Revenue Legislation Further Amendment Act 2020

State Revenue Legislation Further Amendment Act 2020 State Revenue Legislation Further Amendment Act 2020 received assent on 24 June 2020.

The object of this Act is to make amendments to the Duties Act 1997, the Land Tax Act 1956 and the Land Tax Management Act 1956 for the following purposes:

(a) to provide for exemption from and refunds of surcharge purchaser duty and surcharge land tax payable in respect of residential land by the trustee of a discretionary trust if the trust prevents a foreign person from being a beneficiary of the trust,

(b) to make it clear that the Chief Commissioner of State Revenue can approve a manner of stamping or endorsement of the payment of transfer duty and surcharge purchaser duty that removes the need for separate stamping or endorsement for each kind of duty,

(c) to extend provisions that treat an assignment to a third person of an option to purchase dutiable property as a transfer of the property for duty purposes so as to include an arrangement for the relinquishment of the option with an agreement to sell to the third person,

(d) to change the method of determining the value of the land holdings of a landholder for the purposes of the threshold for provisions that impose duty on the acquisition of an interest in a landholder so that unencumbered value is used instead of unimproved,

(e) to provide that, for the purposes of duty payable on the acquisition of an interest in a landholder, land includes anything (whether or not a fixture) that is fixed to the land,

(f) to make a landholder jointly liable for the duty payable by a person when the person acquires an interest in the landholder and to provide for the liability of the landholder to be a charge on the land for which a caveat can be registered,

(g) to enact consequential savings and transitional provisions (including provisions relating to the indexation of dutiable value thresholds consequent on the enactment of the State Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019) and to make miscellaneous minor amendments.

The Act also makes consequential amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Regulation 2014.