‘Bad tax’: Big call on stamp duty

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil says stamp duty on property purchases should be scrapped, calling it a “bad tax” that hampers movement in Australia’s undersupplied property market.

Stamp duty is calculated by state and territory authorities based on the purchase price of a property, and must be paid on top of the deposit and mortgage.

Axing the tax was a key recommendation put forward by the Business Council of Australia (BCA) in a report released this week.

Ms O’Neil said on Tuesday it was “a really good idea.”

“Stamp duty is a bad tax,” she told the ABC.

“It prevents people from moving around the housing market in the way that suits them best and it creates cost for everyone who is selling or buying a home.”

The latest official figures showed state and territory governments yielded a whopping $35.2bn in stamp duty in 2021-22, making up just over a fifth of total revenue.

Ms O’Neil also commented on the Coalition’s newly announced housing policy, which pledged $5bn to infrastructure to open up the stalled development of greenfield sites across the country.

The opposition has claimed it boosting infrastructure would lead to half a million new homes getting built.

“We need to assist with greenfields development, as our government is doing,” Ms O’Neil said.

“We also need state governments to step up a bit on planning reform that will enable us to do infill in existing suburbs.”

She said many young people “would be very happy to live in apartments where they’ve got access to great resources, great transport networks and the life that comes from living in the inner city and we need to give people options.”

The BCA has also called for a harmonisation of processes at all levels of government to clear procedural bottlenecks and pump more newly built properties into the market.

The peak body said efforts should be spearheaded by the federal government, calling for a national reform fund that incentivises states to loosen regulation.