Mortgage duty reduction schedule
In 2007 Tasmania will abolish mortgage duty and South Australia will commence its duty reduction program with other states to follow in 2008.
- Queensland will halve its mortgage duty rate on 1 January 2008 and abolish mortgage duty on 1 January 2009.
- New South Wales will halve mortgage duty from 1 January 2010 and abolish it from 1 January 2011
- Western Australia halved its mortgage duty rate on 1 July 2006 and will abolish mortgage duty on 1 July 2008
- South Australia will reduce the rate of mortgage duty by a third (from current levels) on 1 July 2007 and on 1 July 2008 and will abolish the duty on 1 July 2009, and
- Tasmania halved its rate of mortgage duty on 1 July 2006 and will abolish mortgage duty on 1 July 2007.
Currently Victoria, ACT and NT have no mortgage duty.
In states where mortgage duty is payable, concessions may apply. Talk to your local Network Law firm for an estimate of duty payable.
Currently each state has special provisions for calculating the duty payable on mortgages or mortgage packages that secure property in more than one jurisdiction. In each state, mortgage duty is only payable on a proportion of the secured advances.
New anti-money laundering laws start
The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act) and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (Transitional
Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2006 commenced on 12 December 2006 when they received Royal Assent.
The AML/CTF Act applies to businesses providing designated financial services and gambling services and bullion dealers ("designated services" is defined in Part 1, section 6).
Austrac will remain the key AML/CTF regulator: it will monitor reporting entities’ obligations and be responsible for undertaking intelligence assessments for Australian government and law enforcement agencies.
The first stage of implementation took effect on 13 December 2006. These provisions include :
- the regulation of cross border movements of physical currency and bearer negotiable instruments (Part 4)
- the regulation of electronic funds transfer instructions (Part 5)
- establishment of a register of providers of designated remittance services (Part 6)
- regulations which may prohibit or regulate the entering into of transactions with residents of prescribed foreign countries (Part 9).
- record keeping requirements (Part 10 Divisions 1, 2, 4 and 7): a reporting entity must make a record of a designated service. The reporting entity must retain the record for 7 years. A reporting entity must also retain a record of an applicable customer identification procedure for 7 years after the end of the reporting entity’s relationship with the relevant customer.
- Parts 11 to 18 including offences such as the tipping off offences and other general offences in relation to false or misleading information or documents, and general administrative provisions including audit, information gathering and enforcement powers of Austrac.
Remittance services
The first AML/CTF Rules relate to reportable details of movements of bearer negotiable instruments and movements of physical currency, and the AML/CTF Rules regarding the registrable details in respect of the register of providers of designated remittance services.
Next stages
The next stages of implementation will be:
- 13 June 2007—AML/CTF compliance reports (Part 3, Division 5), correspondent banking (Part 8) and records about correspondent banking (Part 10, Division 6)
- 13 December 2007—identification procedures generally including for pre-commencement customers and certain low-risk customers (Part 2 except for Division 6 which will commence on 13 December 2008),AML/CTF programs (Part 7), records of identification procedures (Part 10, Division 3) and records of AML/CTF programs (Part 10, Division 5)
- 13 December 2008— ongoing customer due diligence (Part 2, Division 6), reporting obligations (Part 3, Divisions 1 to 4 and 6).
