ARTICLE · 29 JULY 2012

Snowy HYDRO Case and recent Legislative changes to stamp duty

DLA Piper Australia

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This update includes an analysis of two recent Victorian duty decisions and stamp duty reforms across Australian states.

AustraliaTax

Substantive legislative reforms to the stamp duty law continue across several Australian states, including the major change, the introduction of a landholder duty regime in Victoria. We also provide an analysis of two recent land-rich duty decisions of the Victorian Court of Appeal.

In light of these recent legislative changes, you should reassess the potential stamp duty implications of any proposed investments in entities that own land in Australia. In particular, the scope of investments in land-owning entities that may be subject to duty in Victoria has been considerably broadened under the new Victorian landholder duty regime, for example, through the removal of the 60% "land-rich" test and the levying of duty on certain acquisitions of "economic entitlements".

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