Tuesday, January 24, 2012

No removal of business duty in Queensland

Today's post summarises an important issue for anyone conducting business in Queensland.

In particular, the Queensland government has announced in its January 2012 interim budget, the deferral of its plan to abolish transfer duty on non-land Queensland business assets.

Broadly, business assets include goodwill, valuable contractual rights, trade debtors, plant and equipment.

The deferral is 'until the budget can accommodate the abolition' - which many commentators are assuming will be indefinitely.

The abolition had been scheduled from 1 July 2013, following the original aim to see it removed on the introduction of GST in July 2000.

As many readers will be aware, other jurisdictions have either abolished duty on non-land business assets (e.g. Victoria, Tasmania and ACT) or have scheduled to abolish it (e.g. New South Wales and South Australia from 1 July 2012 and Western Australia from 1 July 2013).

Until next week.