Page 2045 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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RATES AND LAND TAX (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 3) 1992
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.20), by leave: I present the Rates and Land Tax (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 1992.
Title read by Acting Clerk.
MS FOLLETT: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill amends the Rates and Land Tax Act 1926. The Rates and Land Tax Act provides for the imposition of municipal rates and land tax in the Australian Capital Territory. In 1991 the Act was amended to expand the land tax base to include residential investment properties. As a result of that amendment, the Government has received representations from ACT residents which indicate that there were a number of unintended effects. The Commissioner for ACT Revenue has also brought to my attention difficulties he has been experiencing in applying the new provisions, and in particular in considering taxpayers' requests for exemptions where they are absent from their principal place of residence.
The Bill therefore proposes amendment of the Act to overcome these unintended effects and deficiencies and to provide a more equitable and certain set of provisions in relation to principal place of residence exemptions. These amendments have been framed around justice and equity principles and with a desire to balance the somewhat conflicting interests of citizens who have genuine grounds for being exempted from paying the tax and taxpayers and the community at large, who have an interest in seeing that the total tax burden is shared as broadly and equitably as possible. It is important to remember that persons who, for whatever reason, absent themselves from their principal place of residence and rent it out are competing directly with all other residential landlords and, in equity, should not be receiving an unfair market advantage by not having to pay land tax.
On 7 August I announced administrative arrangements to be put into place pending changes to the Act to provide taxpayer relief in respect of properties occupied by life tenants under a will and for owners accompanying their spouses on temporary absences due to employment. I also announced a stamp duty amnesty for family companies to transfer the family residence to the shareholders to allow the owner residing on the property to claim an exemption. This Bill honours my undertakings to amend the Rates and Land Tax Act to provide permanent relief for life tenants and spouses. The Bill also addresses some other community concerns. It addresses the difficulties the commissioner has advised he is encountering in administering the employment and compassionate based exemption provisions of the current legislation. It reintroduces payment by instalments from 1993-94. The opportunity is also being taken to propose some machinery amendments to improve administration of the Act.
The employment and occupation provision introduced by Mr Collaery in the last Assembly fails to provide the commissioner with clear guidance as to what the legislature intended. The current provision allows an owner to receive an exemption from land tax where, as a consequence of his or her employment, he or she will be absent from his or her principal place of residence for three years, provided that within any five-year period that person resides on that property for
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