Land Tax

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:15): My questions are to the Treasurer concerning land tax:

1. Can the Treasurer advise whether all land tax accounts for the 2020-21 financial year have now been issued to property owners?

2. Can the Treasurer advise the estimated total land tax for the 2021-22 financial year based on the Valuer-General's ill-conceived and shambolic revaluation initiative and how this compares with the total land tax due for the 2020-21 financial year?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:15): I am sure as the Hon. Mr Darley will acknowledge, the revaluation initiative was an initiative of the former Labor government in 2016-17, when the Valuer-General was provided between $15 million and $20 million extra to conduct the revaluation initiative over a period of years. I will let that lay where it lays.

In relation to the honourable member's questions about land tax collection, certainly RevenueSA and the budget branch are updating their projections for 2021-22 in the Mid-Year Budget Review, which will be released next month and so it will be publicly available then. Certainly, the early indications are, as the former Labor government budgeted for and we have acknowledged, there will be increased revenue from the revaluation initiative and increased valuations because increased valuations lead to increased land tax and that has been publicly acknowledged.

It was budgeted for by the former government and it has been acknowledged by this government as an impact of the revaluation initiative. My advice two weeks ago, which was my last recollection of advice on the impacts of the state's most comprehensive land tax reform package, is that we are likely to be collecting less land tax as a result of those land tax reform initiatives than we had originally been projecting.

That is, there is more relief being provided to land tax owners as a result of the reform initiatives, in particular, the reduction of the top land tax rate from 3.7 down to 2.4 per cent. The various other reductions in the rates that were approved as part of that comprehensive land tax reform package and the increases in the thresholds have led to, as I said on the last advice I had a couple weeks ago, likely to be a lower level of tax than we were originally projecting as a result of our land tax reform initiative.

I hasten to say, the former government budgeted and we acknowledged that there was increased land tax revenue as a result of the revaluation initiative, but if I can get any more information before the Mid-Year Budget Review I will provide it, but it is more likely that when the Mid-Year Budget Review is released will be the next publicly available information on what we collected for 2020-21 and what our latest estimate for collection for 2021-22 will be.