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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 308 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

(c) the applicant, in the course of that business, does not dispose of a repossessed or surrendered vehicle except by public tender or public auction or through a person who is a licensed dealer under the Sale of MotorVehicles Act 1977.".

I present the supplementary explanatory memorandum. I understand that has been circulated, Mr Speaker.

These amendments to the Duties Bill and the Duties (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill arise as a consequence of consultation with various industry and professional groups and include the amendments foreshadowed in my tabling speech. They include an amendment to clause 24 of the Duties Bill, the aggregation provision, which will ensure that where blocks of land in a development are purchased separately by the same builder, or strata units within the same strata unit title are separately purchased by the same investor, the value of the separate blocks or strata units is not aggregated together. The application of the aggregation provisions to these situations would have resulted in a significant increase in the stamp duty payable which would in turn be passed on to home buyers.

The other foreshadowed amendment to the Duties Bill involves the insertion of a new clause 32A which, together with an amendment to clause 31 of the Duties (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill, will ensure that duty at marketable security rates will continue to apply to all business assets other than land. This will maintain the current concessional treatment of business assets and ensure that, in purchases of businesses, ACT duty continues to be more favourable for businesses operating in the ACT compared to New South Wales.

The other substantive amendment to the Duties Bill, affecting both clauses 7 and 8, will reduce the number of dutiable transactions deemed to be transfers. Following consultation with the ACT Law Society, industry groups and also with the New South Wales Office of State Revenue, it was considered appropriate to drop from the dutiable transactions list surrenders of interests in ACT land, foreclosures of mortgages over dutiable property, and vesting of dutiable property by a court order.

At the same time the provision relating to the vesting of dutiable property by statute has been specifically limited to situations where there is a merger of corporations under State and Territory statutes - for example, under the ACT Bank Mergers Act. These changes have been made because of the complexity these dutiable items would have added to the administration of the Bill, and because of the small amount of revenue that they were expected to generate for the ACT.

The only other substantive amendment to the Duties Bill relates to clause 215 and involves the replacement of an existing ACT concession with that provided in New South Wales. While both relate to the repossession of a motor vehicle by a finance company, the ACT provision is limited to cases where vehicles have been specifically financed under a lease or hire purchase agreement. The New South Wales provision is sufficiently broad

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