The disparity between the stamp duty on two broadly equivalent economic results prompted the land-rich provisions. They commenced in 1986 as Division 30 of the Stamp Duties Act 1920 . Stamp duty is payable on this acquisition statement based on, among other things, the percentage interest acquired, the time any other prior interests were acquired and the value of the land held by the private corporation. This result is codified under the Duties Act. The Commissioner may include otherwise excluded assets in the determination of whether the ratio of land to all property is 80 per cent or more.
Examples are cash, money on deposit with a bank, and on-demand loans.
Due to these exclusions, a private corporation can be land-rich even if the value of its land holdings constitutes less than 80 per cent of the value of all its property. However, the Chief Commissioner may now count this otherwise excluded property if satisfied that the property was not acquired solely or mainly for the purposes of avoiding duty under the land-rich provisions. As a consequence, the aggregation provisions will now aggregate, for instance, the interests of siblings, and of private companies where common shareholders have a majority interest in each private company. Another anomaly, whereby public unit trusts were treated as related where they had common unitholders, has been corrected. Ownership of the property held by subsidiaries of the private corporation is imputed to the private corporation.