News Updates

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25 January 2022

Stamp duty on land bought for student accommodation facility.

Purchase of land in the Adelaide city for student accommodation was held not to be residential land, therefore, amounted to a "qualifying land" which means no stamp duty was payable.

If the land was determined as "residential land" then the purchaser had to pay $6,868,830.00 stamp duty which included a foreign ownership surcharge of $3,850,000.00.

The Court defined the term "residential" by reference to the commercial nature of the transaction rather than the short term residential use purpose.

The Honourable court at 111 stated that "it is clear that the intention behind the introduction of s 105A was to benefit business, and in particular, to encourage business transactions. The purpose of the removal of “the harmful impact [of] inefficient taxes”, such as stamp duty, was “to remove significant cost barriers to business investment and expansion”. The focus of the amendment is on the entity or entities undertaking the transaction. It is businesses who are the intended beneficiaries of the stamp duty exemption. It is in this light that the property must be characterised, to determine whether it is qualifying land, or whether it is used predominantly for residential purposes. The character of the premises is to be determined in light of the character of the transaction. ... I consider that, as “residential purposes” has not been defined by the Act, save to say that land is used for residential purposes if predominantly used for that purpose, it is appropriate to interpret the word “residential” according to its ordinary usage. In this regard, I reject the submission of the respondent, that “residence” and “residential” have a common law meaning. They do not. They have a common or ordinary meaning, but not a common law meaning. Given the careful and considered analysis of the dictionary definitions of “residence” and “residential” in Marana, I consider that it is appropriate to adopt the meaning distilled by the Court in that case. I consider that “residence”, “reside” and “residential” imply a permanent or long-term commitment to living in a particular place."

The Court further noted that students living at the property do not make a long-term or permanent commitment to live there. Therefore because of short term living arrangements and the commercial nature of the land purchase transaction, the land cannot be categorised as residential land instead it was "qualifying land".

PERPETUAL CORPORATE TRUST LIMITED v COMMISSIONER OF STATE TAXATION [2022] SASC 7 (25 January 2022)

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28 August 2021

Afghanistan update

The Department has ceased its evacuation operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Australians who remain in Afghanistan should be aware of the potential for violence and security threats with large crowds, including an ongoing and very high threat of terrorist attack. The Government is working to ensure that visa options continue to be available to Afghan nationals, both within Afghanistan and those displaced from their home country, through Australia’s long-standing Humanitarian and Migration Programs. If you are in Afghanistan, or you are an Afghan national, and need to enquire about a visa or citizenship application contact +61 2 6196 0196..

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7 August 2021

From 11 August 2021, Australians who live overseas will no longer be granted automatic permission to leave the country, in the latest effort to curtail international travel. Instead, they'll be required to apply to the Australian Border Force for an exemption that can be granted in what the federal government describes as "exceptional circumstances".

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1 July 2021: The federal government has increased the fees for permanent and temporary resident visas.

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