Page 3773 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Speaking specifically to my amendments Nos 2, 4 and 5, my argument is essentially the same. This is a case where the Government seeks to have it all, and it goes beyond reasonableness. It takes the principle of taxation, in my view, beyond anything that is reasonable. What we have here is a government saying that there is a tax that is payable and, whether you are liable to that tax or not, we are going to charge you $20 tax. Up until now not every transaction in connection with land or marketable securities has attracted tax.
In fact, by the Government's own admission they are amending the schedule to delete the words, "Exempt Conveyances" and "Exempt Transfers of Marketable Securities", and substituting instead the titles, "Conveyances Attracting Prescribed Stamp Duty" and "Transfers of Marketable Securities Attracting Prescribed Stamp Duty". So now we are extending taxation to those cases where no tax is payable. I do not understand how the Government can argue this. A transaction takes place and you lodge the documents as you are required to do so that an assessment can be done. There is an assessment that says that you have no tax payable at all. Then the Government says, "We are going to charge you $20 anyway". I think, as I have said, Madam Speaker, that that takes the credibility of taxation way beyond what is reasonable.
The Government is not imposing a tax; it is imposing a document processing fee. That is a different thing altogether, and to cloak it under the disguise of a minimum stamp duty payable is to misrepresent the case. It is not a duty because the person who is going to have to pay it is not liable to pay duty. For that reason I do object to it. I think that it will be abhorrent to most people that they are going to be slugged a $20 fee in this fashion.
I am prepared to accept, in cases where a duty is assessed as payable and it falls between zero and $20, that, in order to go through the whole process of collecting it, perhaps there ought to be a minimum duty payable of $20. But that presumes that there is duty assessed as payable in the first place; not that you are exempt from it, but that you do have to pay some duty. The effect of my amendment in connection with new section 18, new section 46 and new section 51 is that, if after the assessment is made there is duty payable and it falls between zero and $20, the people will pay $20. Of course, if it is over $20, under the Government's interpretation they do not pay this anyway. They pay only the duty that is assessed. So there is already in here a discrimination against the people who are paying less than others.
My amendment then goes on and says that where it is assessed that no duty is payable it will remain an exempt transaction. If it is exempt, it ought to be exempt. That is all I am saying here. I do concede that, even with the amendment that I am putting, it does allow the Government to discriminate against those people who would otherwise pay very little duty. They now have to pay $20 minimum. Once you go beyond $20, people pay whatever the assessment is. There is an inequity there and, for a Government that talks about equity and social justice, it seems rather strange to me. That is the effect of what they are proposing anyway. I am simply moderating it in some respects and saying that, if you assess that no tax is payable, then no tax ought to be payable.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .