I’ve been doing this job for a long time. Nearly fifty years. On radio and television for about thirty years. Have met every prime minister since Menzies and even interviewed Harold Holt when he was Federal Treasurer years before he became prime minister.

Other Treasurers I’ve interviewed on radio and television include Howard, Costello, Crean Snr, Kerrin, Keating. Plus heaps of state Treasurers.

And there’s one question I have never really had answered. Why do we pay so much Stamp Duty? Why, in fact, do we pay any Stamp Duty?

I mean, what do you get for it? I’ve said before: You don’t even get a bloody stamp.

I’ve done some research. I know that the British brought in the Stamp Act in 1765 but that was mainly to drag money out of the American colonies. And that was more than 350 years ago.

In Victoria our state government is one of the greediest, most rapacious, most money-hungry governments in the world. Yes, the world. Last year the Victorian Government collected more than three and a half billion dollars in Stamp Duty. Three and a half  BILLION.

The politicians glibly talk about housing affordability, and the mortgage pressures on ‘working families’ (as Kevin Rudd calls us) and the shortage of properties for rent or investment and the need to kick-start the building industry. Then they clobber you with an obscene rate of Stamp Duties. And you are paying those huge lump sums out of already heavily taxed dollars.

I saw a survey the other day that Stamp Duty for a property in Melbourne was much, much more than for a similar property in the United States or Canada or the UK.

On a $500,000 property you would pay just over $4000 in Stamp Duty in New York, $5000 in London and $6000 in Toronto.

You know what you pay in Melbourne?  $22,000.  And it escalates rapidly after that. On a property worth $650,000   you would pay around $33,000.

That is a huge chunk of money. For what? For nothing?

Every time I ask a Victorian Treasurer when they are going to lower it or abolish it – especially now they are receiving billions of dollars a year through GST – they quote cuts in payroll taxes and claim it’s even higher in some other states.

Well, I don’t care about other states. If they are serious about the housing shortage, if they want to light a fire under the housing industry here in Victoria then slash Stamp Duty immediately by 1% bringing it down from 5 and 6%. And then cut it to three, two and one percent over the following three years and abolish it. Or at least increase the thresholds. It would make Victoria attractive to investors from other states and would help home buyers here.

You have to feel sorry for first home buyers. They get their federal grant of $7000 (it was $14,000) and it goes straight away into the State government’s pocket.

Stamp Duty is legal highway robbery. There is no rhyme nor reason for it in 2008. Except greed.

Friday, February 1, 2008