Lend Lease Development Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue

[2013] VSCA 207

Victorian Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Stamp Duty
2. › Assessment
3. › Dutiable value of dutiable property
4. › Consideration for dutiable transaction
5. › Transfer of land
6. › Nexus required between consideration and dutiable transaction
7. › Money or value passing which 'moves the transfer'
8. › Whether contribution payments for external infrastructure and works outside transferred land form part of consideration
9. › Duties Act 2000 (Vic), ss 11, 20(1), 21(1), 25(1)
1. Stamp Duty
2. › Assessment
3. › Encumbrances
4. › Whether obligations to make contribution payments running with the land constitute 'encumbrances'
5. › Meaning of 'encumbrance' in revenue legislation
6. › Duties Act 2000 (Vic), s 21(1)
1. Taxation
2. › Practice and procedure
3. › Objections and appeals
4. › Application to expand case beyond grounds of disallowance
5. › Whether leave should be granted to raise new statutory ground on appeal
6. › Taxation Administration Act 1997 (Vic), s 109

Quick Take

Where a development agreement obliges a purchaser to make contribution payments for infrastructure and works external to the land transferred, those payments do not form part of the 'consideration' for the transfer of the land for stamp duty purposes under s 20(1) of the Duties Act 2000 (Vic). The focus must remain on the dutiable property actually transferred, not on the land as it will be once developed. Obligations to make contribution payments that run with the land, even if registered on title, are not 'encumbrances' within s 21(1) of the Act unless they create an interest in the nature of a mortgage or charge.