Stamp duty reassessments have turned housing dreams into nightmares. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Homebuyers being pursued to repay stamp duty tax concessions retrospectively were made to feel like criminals, a Legislative Assembly committee has found.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Administration inquired into the ACT Revenue Office’s administration of the Home Buyer Concession Scheme after revelations that thousands of Canberrans had been chased for unpaid stamp duty long after concessions were granted.
Applicants said they had done their best to comply with the scheme’s conditions and believed they were eligible, only for the Revenue Offices to review their applications and aggressively pursue them for repayment of thousands of dollars.
The committee found a lack of clarity in the information about the HBCS, difficulty of navigating the online self-assessment process, criticised the unfairness of the penalty calculations and appeal process and lambasted the Revenue Office for an absence of compassion.
The committee said it received concerning evidence about the aggressive and inconsiderate pursuit of HBCS debts.
It found that interest and penalty charges under the HBCS retrospective assessment program were applied as blunt instruments, without sufficient regard to individual circumstances, vulnerability or whether individuals had engaged with the process in good faith.
“This resulted in life-altering debts for people who had made honest mistakes in interpreting complex eligibility criteria,” the committee said.
“The design and implementation of the retrospective assessment program failed to adequately account for its human impact, with the scale of debts, compounding interest and tone and timing of communications resulting in many individuals feeling treated as criminals despite their attempts to comply with the law.”
The committee found that it was unreasonable to expect all individuals, including those experiencing stressful life events, to fully understand complex concession criteria without assistance, given the potentially life-changing liabilities arising from errors.
Even industry professionals appeared to have struggled in navigating the system, providing advice to individuals that had sometimes turned out to be incorrect and led to reassessments.
“The committee therefore considers that information presented in relation to the HBCS should be made clearer and more readily understandable,” it said.
The Committee said that for many, the reassessment process came as compete surprises and it should be made clear to applicants that the initial approval or grant of the concession was conditional only.
It criticised the time taken to resolve appeals, particularly given the accruing of interest penalties.
Delays to an objection outcome of two months or greater were unacceptable, given the considerable mental and financial stress and the fact that by that point the Revenue Office had most of the required information to review an individual’s HBCS debt.
The committee also considered it unethical that the Revenue Office continued to charge interest while an objection process was under way.
The committee acknowledged the work by the ACT Government to date to address and improve some of these matters but said there was still more to be done.
The Committee made 15 recommendations including that the ACT Government ensures all notices of assessment and reminder letters clearly explain the conditional nature of the concession and how to self-report issues; implementing a formal compassionate review process; introducing a cap on interest charges for cases where non-compliance is self-reported; and freezing interest and recovery actions while objections or ACAT proceedings are under way.
The committee included chair James Milligan (Liberal), Fiona Carrick (Independent), Caitlin Tough (Labor) and Jo Clay MLA (Greens, from 12 December 2025)
