Stamp Duty under Eric Ripper

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:49:00 GMT

Many people are aware that stamp duty has increased substantially under Ripper but not many are actually aware of the impact of both the rises in property values combined with increases /decreases in stamp duty rates.

Following is a schedule showing this impact for your information.

HISTORY OF STAMP DUTY UNDER RIPPER AS TREASURER.
YEAR	Perth Medium House Price	Actual Stamp Duty at Rate	If no change to MHP	If no change to Stamp duty rate.	Change to tax rate
2001	170,000	4,620.00	$4,620.00	$4,620.00
2002	195,000	6,142.00	$5,105.00	$5,645.00	Stamp Duty increased by 15% 30/06/02
2003	225,000	8,467.50	$5,855.00	$6,755.00	Stamp Duty increased by 15% 30/06/03
2004	255,000	9,450.00	$5,570.00	$8,007.50	Stamp duty reduced by 5% 01/07/04
2005	298,000	10,600.00	$5,000.00	$9,864.00	Stamp duty reduced by 5% 28/10/04
2006	405,000	15,950.00	$5,000.00	$15,732.50
2007	450,000	18,200.00	$5,000.00	$16,780.00
2008	466,000	16,140.50 18,050.00 **1	$5,000.00	$17,508.00	General stamp duty reduced by 5% on 01/0708 PLUS a new category, Concessional Residential was introduced which reduced Stamp Duty on residential properties by some 15.2%

**1: $16,140.40 is Concessional Residential Rate; $18,050.00 is General Rate applies to Commercial properties and Vacant Land where no Residential Building Contract has been entered into.

Table Source: (Medium House prices from REIWA website, stamp duty rates from Office of State Revenue Website.)

In brief, what this shows is;

when labour came to power, we paid $4,620.00 stamp duty on the medium house price.
today we are paying $16,140.50 on the medium house price, recently reduced from $18,200.00, or $18,050.00 on commercial property and vacant land.
Ripper has now increased stamp duty twice by 15% each time, ( a compounded rate of 32.5% since coming to power,) in their 1^st 2 years of Government, yet it has taken a further 5 years to reduce the % rate back to about what it was when they came to power.
In that time property prices have almost tripled which means his tax take per property was more than triple, now reduced to some 2.7 times per property transaction.

Effectively, Ripper has had a massive tax win on conveyancing stamp duty since coming to power and, while some concessions have been made to first home owners, the balance of the population dealing in property are carrying a massive and unreasonable burden;- the figures above speak for themselves.

FURTHER, Ripper brags good financial management by having paid cash for a railway and hospital to date, (despite the fact that they have just started work on the Fiona Stanley Hospital site.)

However, anyone with any knowledge of financing understands that one does not fund a long term infrastructure project by cash, rather over 10 – 20 years.

Had he done that, he would have freed up a massive amount of cash to fix many of the pressing problems facing our community today.

At a time when the community should be benefiting from the current wealth of the state, we are being taxed higher than ever in the past.

We have wasted the best opportunity for the state of WA in its history.

Opinions from Allan

Stamp Duty under Eric Ripper