The Victorian State Government has announced new taxes to partially fund the Suburban Rail Loop as part of “value capture” arrangements.

The Victorian State Revenue Office has issued a draft revenue ruling “Land transfer duty - Consideration - Assumption of tax liabilities” for comment that seeks to impose a new stamp duty on adjustments at settlement of property transfers.  This is an Australian first tax and will penalise commercial and other property transfers.

The Victorian Supreme Court in Alphington Developments Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue [2025] VSC 709 considered the dutiable value for a transfer of land under paragraph 20(1)(a) of the Duties Act 2000 (Vic) and whether payments required to be made by the vendor under a contract were able to reduce the headline purchase price for stamp duty purposes.

The Victorian Supreme Court has held that acquisitions of units in hybrid unit trusts are potentially subject to landholder duty.

The case has wide impact with potentially absurd outcomes for some taxpayers.

A New South Wales case has opened up a risk of taxpayers to surcharge rates of stamp duty and land tax for residential land held in family trusts where badly drafted foreign person exclusion clauses have been used.  This may require a complete review of all trust deeds to ensure that additional stamp duty and land tax imposts are not incurred.

The 2025-2026 Victorian State Budget contains no new taxes or increased taxes, however previously announced changes have been confirmed – including increases to the congestion/car parking levy and the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund levy.

A Victorian foreign purchaser who bought a property in her own name with funding provided by her Australian spouse was unsuccessful in a VCAT request for exemption from foreign purchaser stamp duty surcharge in Sim v Commissioner of State Revenue [2025] VCAT 349.

A taxpayer has lost an appeal in New South Wales on the ground that a potential exemption did not apply to agreements to transfer. This has wide implications for other transactions.

The New South Wales State Budget 2024-25 is a mixed bag, containing an increase to foreign surcharges, but also payroll tax relief for GP contractors. The tax-free threshold for land tax will also remain the same, so more landowners will be subject to land tax as property values rise.

The new Commercial and Industrial Property Tax reform that progressively abolishes stamp duty on commercial and industrial property from 1 July 2024 is one of the most significant Victorian property tax reforms in the past 30 years.  Anyone looking to buy or sell commercial or industrial property will be impacted.

On 14 May 2024, the State Taxation Amendment Bill 2024 (Vic) (the Bill) was released after having its second reading speech in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

The Victorian State Budget for the 2021-2022 year brings with it particularly broad-ranging state taxation measures that will impact a diverse cross-section of the Victorian community. The changes include increased land tax and transfer (stamp) duty rates as well as new tax measures such as the windfall gain tax on rezoned land and a mental health and wellbeing levy (payroll tax surcharge).

Land transfer duty is calculated on the dutiable value of the property. In Commissioner of State Revenue (Vic) v 1043 Melton Highway Pty Ltd [2020] VSC 820, the Supreme Court considered default interest is included in ‘consideration’ for the transfer of dutiable property.

The coronvirus pandemic continues to have an impact on the health of Victorians and the econmy of the State. In recognition the Victorian Government continues to provide a number of state tax and duty relief measures to assist Victorians with the economic impact of the pandemic.

In CCSR v Benidorm Pty Ltd [2020] NSWCA 285, the NSW Court of Appeal found that a ‘declaration of trust’ did not trigger duty on the basis that it merely acknowledged the existence of an existing trust.

While the application of land transfer (stamp) duty is reasonably straight forward for land transfers such as a purchase of property under a contract of sale, the application of duty in relation to declarations of trust can be complicated.

As of 1 May 2020, the State Taxation Acts Amendment (Relief Measures) Act 2020 (Vic) introduces various changes to land transfer duty and payroll tax relief measures as part of the government’s response to provide relief measures for bushfire affected areas and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas announced on 5 May 2020 that the Victorian Government will provide additional tax relief to businesses suffering as a result of COVID-19. The measures, which bring the Government’s economic survival and job package cost to $1.7billion include: