Australia`s federal government passed legislation in December 2017 to impose a "vacancy fee" on some overseas homeowners who own Australian residential properties. Vacancy fee is levied on an annual basis, and the annual fee is equal to the application fee paid by overseas buyers when they apply for home purchase in that year.
Australia`s federal government passed legislation in December 2017 to impose a "vacancy fee" on some overseas homeowners who own Australian residential properties. Vacancy fee is levied on an annual basis, and the annual fee is equal to the application fee paid by overseas buyers when they apply for home purchase in that year. For example, when you applied for a home permit from an overseas buyer, you paid an application fee of 11000 Australian dollars, and if you leave the house vacant, you will have to pay the Australian Federal government an annual vacancy fee of 11000 Australian dollars.
The term "vacant property fee" is extremely misleading and causes overseas owners who do not have vacant properties to think that the charge is irrelevant to themselves, thereby losing the penalty resulting from making an annual declaration of the use of property to the Australian Inland Revenue Department. It is much larger than the housing vacancy fee. Therefore, the author thinks it is necessary to make a brief introduction to Australia`s housing vacancy fee system and its annual declaration method, in order to help Chinese overseas owners understand their annual reporting obligations and avoid the consequences of reporting.
Which overseas owners are affected by the housing vacancy fee system and its annual declaration method?
This applies to overseas owners who submit applications for the purchase of residential properties to the Foreign Investment Review Committee of Australia (FIRB) after 19:30 EDT on May 9, 2017. And do not apply to buy new houses directly from the developer, but the developer`s direct sales certificate is the overseas owner who applied to FIRB after the above point. In addition to the overseas owners are not affected by the measures, currently do not carry out an annual declaration of the use of real estate.
How do affected overseas owners make annual returns on the use of their properties?
First, overseas owners of Australian residential properties must register their property information on the Australian Inland Revenue Authority`s (ATO) website within 30 days of delivery. Non-registered, individual owners can be fined up to 250 points (1 point present value of 210 Australian dollars, 250 points or 52500 Australian dollars), company owners can be fined 1250 points, that is, 262500 Australian dollars.
Secondly, every 12 months from the delivery date is a reporting year for the owner. Within 30 days of the end of each year, the owner must declare the use of his property in the previous year, regardless of whether the property is vacant or not. So each owner`s filing year is different, neither a generic calendar year nor an Australian fiscal year.
