Stamp duty traps to watch out for

• Main Authors: LIU, Hern Kuan, OOI, Vincent
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Stamp Duties; Tax Law; Singapore Taxation; Asian Studies; Taxation-State and Local
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/3678; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/5636/viewcontent/Stamp_Duty_Traps_To_Watch_Out_For.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

On 15 December 2021, the Ministry of Finance introduced a new package of measures designed to cool the residential property market. The measures include increases in Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (“ABSD”), the tightening of the Total Debt Servicing Ratio, adjustments to the Loan to Valuation limit for loans from HDB and a planned increase of housing supply.Notably, there were significant increases in the ABSD rates applicable to almost all categories of buyers. The ABSD rates only remained unchanged for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents purchasing their first residential property (0% and 5% respectively). This article focuses on the implications of the increase in ABSD rates arising from the property cooling measures.The considerable increase in ABSD rates has made stamp duty mis-steps even more costly and taxpayers should look out for the following “traps” in dealing with residential property if they do not want to incur an unexpected (and large) tax bill.