Stamp duty question?

[canopy]

Why SA is among the highest charge stamp duty for first home owner or buy another home?

[Howie]

Yes agreed, it's pretty ridiculous. Here's a comparison..


edit: resized for readability.

[joshzxzx]

That is obsured!

I now understand why sooooo many people leave Adelaide or Invest in other parts of Australia.

I have already made a decision not to purchase any more properties in SA due to the Land Tax Fees, but I was unaware of the high stamp duty fee.
The above article just reaffirms my decision not to continue investing here. Quite a pitty though as I would prefer to help the local economy!

[Shuz]

What's with Queensland's absurdly low stamp duty?

[canopy]

rip off mate! can we protest to the goverment! Is anyone doing something about this?

[Howie]

PCA, BusinessSA, and other business groups have been lobbying for a very long time now. It doesn't look like it'll be resolved any time soon.

[AtD]

Why should we cut stamp duty? Keeping in mind that any shortfall in revenue will need to be made up elsewhere. As that table shows, Victoria has even higher stamp duty and it's the fastest growing state, so whatever negative effects it has can't be that profound.

I don't think there's much of an economic argument that stamp duty is more damaging than any other tax.

[contractor]

The Henry tax review due to be released later this year will recommend scrapping stamp duty Australia wide. Quote from The Australian:

'The Henry review has been inundated with submissions calling for the end of stamp duty. Tax economists argue that the tax on moving house, although easy to collect, leads to poor use of the housing stock and poor labour mobility.

Having to pay stamp duty not only discourages elderly people from moving to more appropriate accommodation, it also deters people from moving house to a better jobs market.'

Hopefully this will be the catalist for people who aren't happy with the progress of this state to leave

[Norman]

Will this be stamp duty for everything or just houses?

[Aidan]

Why should we cut stamp duty? Keeping in mind that any shortfall in revenue will need to be made up elsewhere. As that table shows, Victoria has even higher stamp duty and it's the fastest growing state, so whatever negative effects it has can't be that profound.

I don't think there's much of an economic argument that stamp duty is more damaging than any other tax.

I think there is. It adds to the cost of doing business more than other taxes. Land tax is far less damaging, because without it the cost of land would rise, so the people and businesses renting land would be no better off.

Even payroll tax, which has the public perception of being the worst of the state taxes, isn't as bad for business or employment as it appears because of the lowering effect it has on wages. And if the revenue is spent on things which reduce the cost of living, it can actually be a good thing. But there are no direct benefits to having high stamp duty - it merely reduces the number of transactions taking place.

[Will]

On a world scale, Australia is not a high tax paying country. Look at how much tax the Europeans pay first before complaining.

It is unfortunate that people equate taxes as something bad. Recall that taxes pay for things such as public schools, hospitals, police and infraestructure.

Sure you can reduce taxes, but please don't complain when you get a bill for $10 000 when you visit a hospital or when you live in a country that spends more than it earns like the US. You can't have it both ways.

[JamesXander]

This is the thing I wonder.


How can we cut taxes- Well we have to reduce spending.
How do we cut spending- Well we look at areas that we can cut back on
Where can we cut back on...


And this is the trick question. And here are a few of my ideas.

Scrap useless grants, and spending on absurd things. Like funding the ASO or Opera.
Crack down of welfare cheats (may be costly in the short run, will pay huge div's in the long run)
Crack down on insurance cheats (car rego will fall)

& lastly, and the biggest area that needs to be addressed IMO, is the public sector.
The public sector is largly not very efficient. We have too many people in our PS. We need to run our PS like a private enterprise. We could save our state & country literally billions over the next few years.


As one of my lectures has said, Public servants feel secure in their job because it is hard for a public sector worker to be fired.

[Aidan]

On a world scale, Australia is not a high tax paying country. Look at how much tax the Europeans pay first before complaining.

No! The original claim wasn't that taxes in general are too high, it's that stamp duty is too high. 'Tis bad for the economy, and we'd be better off abolishing it completely, even though other taxes would have to rise to cover the revenue shortfall.

It is unfortunate that people equate taxes as something bad. Recall that taxes pay for things such as public schools, hospitals, police and infraestructure.

Yes they do, but that's no reason to ignore their bad effects.

Sure you can reduce taxes, but please don't complain when you get a bill for $10 000 when you visit a hospital or when you live in a country that spends more than it earns like the US. You can't have it both ways.

To some extent you can. By spending money efficiently and exploiting economic cycles, reducing taxes while keeping service levels high is at least theoretically possible.

It is said that most people want Swedish levels of service with American levels of taxation everywhere (including Sweden and America). I don't think anyone's got anywhere near that yet, though Australia comes closer than most.

[Aidan]

This is the thing I wonder.

How can we cut taxes- Well we have to reduce spending.
How do we cut spending- Well we look at areas that we can cut back on
Where can we cut back on...

And this is the trick question. And here are a few of my ideas.

Scrap useless grants, and spending on absurd things. Like funding the ASO or Opera.

Except that they're not useless at all. There are people who can afford to live anywhere in the world. This sort of thing can attract them to Adelaide, so it can be good for the economy.

Crack down of welfare cheats (may be costly in the short run, will pay huge div's in the long run)

No, it may save some money, but the amount will not be huge.

Crack down on insurance cheats (car rego will fall)

Just how do you propose doing that?

& lastly, and the biggest area that needs to be addressed IMO, is the public sector.
The public sector is largly not very efficient. We have too many people in our PS. We need to run our PS like a private enterprise. We could save our state & country literally billions over the next few years.

The previous state government made the mistake of cutting PS staff too much and ended having to pay consultants to do the work, which was far more expensive.

As one of my lectures has said, Public servants feel secure in their job because it is hard for a public sector worker to be fired.

There's nothing wrong with having people feel secure in their job. Insecurity is not a good thing, and people who lose their job security are likely to demand more pay to compensate.

[Will]

This is the thing I wonder.


How can we cut taxes- Well we have to reduce spending.
How do we cut spending- Well we look at areas that we can cut back on
Where can we cut back on...


And this is the trick question. And here are a few of my ideas.

Scrap useless grants, and spending on absurd things. Like funding the ASO or Opera.
Crack down of welfare cheats (may be costly in the short run, will pay huge div's in the long run)
Crack down on insurance cheats (car rego will fall)

& lastly, and the biggest area that needs to be addressed IMO, is the public sector.
The public sector is largly not very efficient. We have too many people in our PS. We need to run our PS like a private enterprise. We could save our state & country literally billions over the next few years.


As one of my lectures has said, Public servants feel secure in their job because it is hard for a public sector worker to be fired.

Your lecturer is a typical bean counter. Sure the private sector is more efficient than the public service but that is a very one-dimensional arguement. There are other factors that should be considered when deciding whether to privatise public goods and not just how much money the government will save. Numerous studies have shown that the public good dictates that certain services are best provided by the public sector. For example the Howard government privatised the formerly public rehabilitation and employment services. This has particularly affected disabled or injured workers whom in the past under public ownership were not constrained by the 'profit' model of private enterprise. Thus these people were found jobs that they wanted to do and were capable of doing. Now, under a private system constrained by the idea of making profits, there are numerous cases which I have dealt with of people being sent to do the first job that comes up irrespective of whether they can or want to do.

Likewise I wonder how many suicides will result from the government's mean and tricky decision to privatise the counselling service at the RAH?