24620 – APN Tax-to-Subsidy Leverage Ratio™

The APN Tax-to-Subsidy Leverage Ratio™ reads how much state governments collect from home purchase in transfer (conveyance) duty for each dollar they return to first home buyers as grants and duty concessions. A higher reading means the states take more relative to the assistance they give, which counts as more pressure on buyers.

It is a national time series, quarterly, built on a disclosed sample of four states, and a component of the APN Net State Position™ (24600). It differs from Tax Laws (21310), which reads conveyance duty against the size of the dwelling stock as a tax burden. This component reads duty against assistance: the net take.

The figures are collated by financial year for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, which together collected 92.8% of national conveyance duty in 2024-25 (90.1% to 93.7% across the record). Grants and concessions are counted together, so that a state moving support from one to the other does not register as a change in support. For Queensland, only the first-home component of its concessions is counted.

The quarterly series spreads each financial year across its four quarters by a standard benchmarking method (Denton), following published quarterly or monthly figures where they exist and ABS lending indicators by state where they do not. Each financial year sums exactly to its annual figure. The reading is standardised against its 2011–2025 history.

In 2024-25 the four states collected $14.34 of conveyance duty for each dollar of first-home assistance. The ratio differs widely between states: Western Australia collected the most per dollar of assistance, and Victoria, with the largest first-home concession, the least. For 2025-26 the states’ budget papers point to duty rising to about $38.6 billion across the four, from $32.0 billion, while assistance eases, which takes the quarterly ratio to $18.64 in June 2026. Those quarters are provisional until the 2025-26 actuals are published.

The ratio rose from $5.39 in the December quarter 2011 to $18.94 in December 2016, as first home owner grants were cut back and restricted to new homes while duty rose with prices. It fell from mid-2017, when New South Wales and Victoria exempted first home buyers of established homes from duty, and reached $7.28 in December 2020, when pandemic-era grants were at their height. It rose again from 2021 with duty receipts, and held between $14.2 and $14.8 from September 2023 to June 2025.

On the provisional 2025-26 figures, the ratio stands at $18.64 in June 2026, after a high of $19.01 in March 2026, the highest of the record. On final data, the latest reading is $14.52 in June 2025, at position 57.6.

• Provisional quarters. The September 2025 to June 2026 quarters rest on 2025-26 budget estimates of duty, and on estimates for some assistance. They are replaced when ABS Taxation Revenue for 2025-26 (about April 2027) and the states’ 2025-26 figures are published, and the reading may move. The baseline uses final quarters only.
• Quarterly figures are partly estimated. About 40% of duty and 30–42% of assistance in a typical year comes from published quarterly or monthly figures. The rest is spread across quarters in line with ABS lending indicators: the value of housing loans for duty, and the number of first home buyer loans for concessions and grants. Tested against quarters where actual figures exist, the typical error was about 4% to 10%. Each financial year is exact.
• A sample of four states. South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are not included: their first-home assistance cannot be assembled on the same basis. The four states hold 90% to 94% of national conveyance duty in every year.
• Net recording. Duty is recorded net of exemptions and concessions, so the reading is duty actually collected per dollar of assistance, not gross duty.
• Policy changes. First-home schemes were redesigned in every sample state over the period, among them the New South Wales new-homes restriction (2012) and established-home exemption (July 2017), First Home Buyer Choice (2023, whose opt-in purchases are not counted as exemptions), the Victorian exemption (July 2017), Queensland’s home concession changes (2011 and 2012), its $30,000 grant (November 2023) and new-home exemption (May 2025), and Western Australia’s threshold changes (May 2024 and March 2025). The ratio records their combined effect.
• Estimates in the assistance figures. Queensland and Western Australian concession costs are Treasury tax expenditure estimates, as neither state publishes administrative totals.

The other components of the APN Net State Position™ (24600).