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Stamp Duties Must Go
Real Estate Institute of NSW President, Mrs Cristine Castle, said today that the NSW Government must follow the lead of every other State in Australia and remove stamp duties on mortgages.
The call follows yesterday’s announcement by Western Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, that his government would halve stamp duty on mortgages from July this year and would completely abolish the duty in July 2008.
Mrs Castle today joined Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, in calling on the NSW Government to urgently reduce its addiction to property taxes.
Treasurer Costello recently described GST revenues flowing back to the states as “rivers of gold” which have provided governments like NSW with “more revenue than they were ever promised or ever expected” and called on the NSW Government to abolish “a whole raft” of indirect taxes including: stamp duties on mortgages, stamp duties on business conveyances, stamp duties on commercial rental agreements and stamp duties on leases.
Mrs Castle said the Iemma Government must abolish these duties urgently to encourage investment in NSW.
“In effect the NSW Government is giving other states a competitive advantage. Other states are luring property investment and economic development away from NSW because of these duties that should have been abolished following the introduction of the GST,” Mrs Castle said.
“The NSW Government’s addiction to property taxes and duties without any consideration of the long-term effects on people’s investment psyche, rental accommodation, employment, retirement asset planning and investment participation is politically short sighted.”
Mrs Castle said scrapping stamp duty on mortgages would be a positive step by the Iemma Government in stimulating the State’s economy, encouraging greater investment, boosting the construction industry and ensuring a growing stock of affordable housing.
“What the NSW Government must understand is that fewer property investors means fewer properties to rent and higher rents are devastating to low income earners,” Mrs Castle said.
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