Industry funds urge ASIC to reclassify stamp duty

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

26 February 2026

Industry superannuation funds want the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to remove stamp duty from the “fees and costs” metrics utilised in cost comparison tools across the sector.

The Super Members Council has told ASIC that it believes stamp duty is being misclassified because it is a Government tax and not a negotiable investment fee.

It said this justifies the fast-tracking of ASIC intended full review of Regulatory Guide 97 on fee disclosure.

For its part, ASIC is proposing to amend the current regulatory arrangements to treat stamp duty as a transaction cost but adjust the amortisation period from the first year to seven years.

The SMC has told ASIC that while its proposal is welcome, it still “represents an accounting fix, not a full solution to the conceptual misclassification of samp duty”.

“To maintain strong transparency for consumers without impeding capital flows into assets that can deliver the strongest long-term risk-adjusted returns for Australians with super, SMC recommends that stamp duty be removed from ‘fees and costs’ metrics altogether and instead be disclosed separately under a clearly defined label as ‘Government tax’,” the industry funds group said.

It said such a move would preserve transparency about the existence and scale of the tax without letting it distort fee metrics that drive member comparisons, regulatory tests and trustee portfolio construction.

The submission said that continuing to report on stamp duty as a fee or cost would have the following consequences:

• Distort investment decisions: Counting stamp duty as an ongoing transaction cost inflates reported costs for property and other real assets, making them appear less attractive and pushing trustees away from assets that may deliver better long-term net returns
• Misleads members about what a ‘fee is’: Stamp duty is an unavoidable government tax, not a fee charged by the fund or investment manager that can be negotiated down or managed away through efficiency. Rolling into transaction costs blurs this distinction and risks members thinking the fund is expensive and inefficient, when the drive is a one-off state tax on acquiring an asset that has been carefully chosen to deliver the strong long-term investment returns to members.
• Erodes competitive neutrality: Embedding stamp duty in fees and costs treats economically similar exposures differently, favouring listed or offshore structures where the tax is not disclosed or distorting like-for-like comparisons.
• Undermines comparability: Higher disclosed transaction costs impact performance outcomes, penalising funds that invest on behalf of their members in assets with upfront stamp duty even when net performance remains strong.