Two state governments handed down their budgets last week, and with it their verdict on stamp duty.
NSW farmers are met with good news as their state government has decided to scrap stamp duties on crop and livestock insurance effective January 1 next year. There has been no such good news for SA growers, on the other hand.
In addition to the stamp duty relief, worth $12m over four years, the NSW Government has also allocated $182m to Local Land Services, $20m of which will go to biodiversity reforms, The Weekly Times reported.
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Commenting on the move, NSW Farmers president Derek Schoen said that while he welcomed the initiative, he claimed that most of the budget was “a lot of repackaging of existing initiatives”.
Meanwhile, Darren Arney, Grain Producers South Australia (GPSA) chief executive, has expressed disappointment that the state budget provided no relief on the emergency services levy or stamp duty for SA growers – this despite the state having the highest rate of stamp duty on farm insurance in the nation, at 11.5%, the report said.
This recent development sees South Australia bordering two states that have slashed insurance duties for farmers. The other was Victoria, which announced in May that it would remove stamp duty on insurance against damage to crops, including on multi-peril policies, livestock, and equipment.
Arney expressed concern the new levy on banks – if it was passed on to those with loans – may put an additional burden on SA growers.
The new tax will increase about $90m a year and will be charged at a rate of 0.015% per quarter on the state's relative share of the liabilities held by Australia's big five banks.
“All the overheads including emergency services levy, the bank tax and the stamp duty add to the cost of production of grain and make South Australian farmers less competitive in a global market,” Arney told The Weekly Times.
