Dominic Perrottet to seek federal backing to scrap NSW stamp duty

theguardian.com:

The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, will seek federal government help to scrap stamp duty during a meeting with prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Friday, insisting no change can be made to the “inherently terrible” tax without support.

Perrottet been a vocal proponent of scrapping stamp duty in NSW since he flagged his ambition to move to an annual land tax as the state’s treasurer in 2020.

At the time, it was flagged that homebuyers could choose to opt out of paying stamp duty in favour of an ongoing annual property tax. Stamp duty would later be abolished altogether, with the move to annual payments predicted to inject as much as an additional $11bn into the state’s coffers over four years.

Despite a consultation paper being released last year, progress on the reform has been slow.

But on Monday the Sydney Morning Herald reported the government had signed off on a proposal to push ahead with the reform to allow homebuyers be able to opt-in to an annual land tax.

The Top 20% of residential properties – which make up the vast bulk of stamp duty receipts – will reportedly be excluded from the proposal, in an attempt to stave off a significant hit to the budget.

NSW collected about $9.4bn in stamp duty last financial year, making up about 28% of the state’s total tax revenue, and industry groups have warned it would take decades to recoup if it wasn’t offset by federal reform.

The state’s treasury department has previously estimated that Perrottet’s proposal for an optional land tax would leave the budget short to the tune of about $2.5bn a year.

But on Monday Perrottet moved to downplay expectations the government would be in a position to scrap stamp duty. He said that while there would be “announcements in