Which Stamp Duties Have Been Abolished?

If you are told that stamp duty is payable on your mortgage, your insurance policy or your company constitution, check the date of the advice. Part VI of the Stamp Duties Act (Chapter 117) abolished a series of duties, and the change is now well over fifteen years old.

What was abolished, and when

The anti-deferral rule

Parliament anticipated that people would try to hold transactions back until the duty disappeared. Sections 97(4) and 99(6) provide that the abolition does not apply to an instrument executed or transaction entered into on or after 1 January 2008 if it was made pursuant to another arrangement, made before 1 January 2008, the only or main purpose of which was to defer the transaction until that date or later so that duty would not be chargeable.

That is now of largely historical interest, but it illustrates the Act's consistent approach to timing-based avoidance. See the anti-avoidance rules.

What still attracts duty

The abolitions are significant but selective. Still chargeable under Schedule 1:

• Item 5 — conveyances or transfers on sale of real property. See buying a house.
• Item 9 — leases and agreements for leases of land and goods. See leases.
• Item 15 — transfers or assignments of leases of land.
• Item 15A — minerals and petroleum farm-ins and transfers.
• Item 16 — transfers of marketable securities. See share transfers.
• Item 16A — acquisition of an interest in a landholding private corporation.
• Items 8, 10, 11, 14 — deeds of gift, partitions and divisions, and deeds of settlement.
• Item 19 — lottery tickets.

What this means in practice

1. A mortgage executed today is not stamp-dutiable. Lenders' fees are a separate matter from stamp duty.
2. Incorporating a company does not attract stamp duty on the constitution. IPA fees are not stamp duty.
3. Insurance policies do not attract duty.
4. Ordinary commercial agreements are generally outside the dutiable items unless they are an agreement for the transfer on sale of property (section 46), a lease or agreement for lease, or another specified item.
5. Old documents follow the old law. The abolitions run from the dates above. An instrument executed before them was chargeable, and if it was never stamped the liability and penalty position under sections 18 and 19 has to be worked out under the law as it stood.