“Keeping it in the Family” - Expanded Duty Concession For The Transfer Of Family Farms
21-Feb-2017
There has been a further extension on the transfer duty (more commonly called ‘stamp duty’) concession for the transfer of family businesses of primary production that was released on 23 December, 2016. The great news is that this concession now covers Water Allocations!
Before explaining the new part of this concession, it is worth summarizing the concession for those that are not familiar with it.
It applies to land used primarily to carry on a primary production business (cane, grain and cattle land) and personal property used to carry on the
business (plant and equipment such as unregistered tractors, implements and other farming machinery).
- The seller is a defined relative of the buyer. Defined relative is a parent, grandparent, brother/sister, nephew/niece, child/grandchild, aunt/uncle
or the spouse of any of these;
- The seller conducts the business (ie. running the farm), and
- The buyer intends to carry on the business (whether alone or with others).
The concession has continued to evolve over the last few years. Originally it only applied to “gifts” between parents and their children (eg. No money
changing hands). Now the seller can receive money from the buyer in exchange for the farm and the duty concession can still apply (so no duty is
payable).
As noted above, the concession now also applies to Water Allocations!
Prior to the 23 December change the value of the Water Allocation was still dutiable. This meant that you would need to obtain a valuation from a Real
Estate Agent or Valuer and have to pay duty on the market value of the Water Allocation.
The concession unfortunately does not apply to registered farm vehicles. Vehicle registration duty is a separate duty payable to the Queensland Government
so any registered farm vehicles (eg. registered tractors or farm utes) need to have duty paid before they are transferred over to the buyer. However,
it is worth noting that there is a separate exemption that applies to vehicles used solely in a primary production business where the gross vehicle
mass is over 6 tonnes.