Alert

Who does this affect?

Persons and entities which own land in Victoria or are considering acquiring land in Victoria.

What do you need to do?

If the Bill is passed, carefully examine any notice of assessment of land tax to ensure that there are no errors. If a land tax assessment contains errors, notify these to the State Revenue Office.

Author
Stuart Courtney  
Senior Associate

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Frank Brody  
Partner
T +61 3 9643 4075

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Peter Fogarty  
Partner
T +61 3 9643 4127

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The State Taxation Acts Further Amendment Bill 2009 recently introduced to the Victorian Parliament, proposes (amongst other things) to establish an obligation on persons served with a notice of assessment of land tax to notify the State Revenue Office (SRO) of any errors contained in the assessment.

The Changes

The Bill amends the Land Tax Act 2005 so as to require landowners who are served with a notice of assessment of land tax to notify the SRO of any omission or error relating to:

• land owned in Victoria which is not specified in the notice

• for jointly held land, any land owned by the joint owners which is not specified in the notice, and

• any land specified in the notice as exempt land which is not exempt land.

The notification must be given to the SRO within 60 days of the date of issue of the assessment. The Bill does allow for one joint-owner to notify SRO on behalf of the all owners in respect of jointly held land.

Implications

Previously land owners were not required to notify the SRO of any errors contained in their land tax assessment. However, if the Bill is passed then land owners will have to carefully review such assessments and ensure that any errors are promptly notified to the SRO.

The penalty for failure to notify the SRO is 25% of the additional amount of tax that the tax payer would have been assessed as liable to pay had the SRO been notified as required. However, where the Commissioner is satisfied that the failure to notify was caused wholly or partly by intentional disregard, then the Commissioner has the discretion to increase the penalty tax payable to 75%.