The territory's stamp duty taxes are now second lowest in the country as a proportion of the median house price, despite the buoyant property market keeping average stamp duty bills at the fourth highest level in the country.
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A new Housing Industry Association report on stamp duty across the country has lent further weight to the territory government's 20-year abolition of the conveyancing duty, a policy espoused by many economists as helping to increase housing affordability.
It examined the impact of stamp duty on non-first home buyer owner occupiers in all states and territories across the country, as well as each governments' dependence on the tax as a source of revenue.
The report showed the ACT had an average stamp duty tax of $18,000 on a median house price of $610,000 in December last year, compared to the highest tax in Victoria, of $32,000 on a median house price of $615,000.
HIA ACT and southern NSW executive director Greg Weller said stamp duty taxes distorted the housing market and made it more difficult for people to buy or move house and the tax was not a stable revenue source for government.
He said in 2015-16, states and territories collected a total of $20 billion in stamp duty revenue, or 26.1 per cent of the total state or territory government tax take, the highest proportion in "nearly a decade".
"Only two jurisdictions went against this trend between 2011/12 and 2015/16, being the ACT and NT, with the ACT falling from 20.2% to 18.2%," he said.
"However, unlike the NT, the national capital achieved this with a backdrop of rising house prices."
The report also showed the ACT had the second-lowest "stamp duty burden" as a proportion of median house prices in December last year, at 3 per cent, beaten only by Queensland at 1.6 per cent.
But that figure was lower than all other jurisdictions, with the stamp duty burden in other states ranging from 3.4 per cent in Western Australia and Tasmania up to 5.2 per cent in Victoria.
Mr Weller said the key factor was the ACT's decision to wean the territory off the revenue source, but the "relatively high price of homes" meant Canberrans were still paying the fourth highest stamp duty bills in the country.
It showed the proportion of total revenue for the ACT budget derived from stamp duty fell slightly from 20.2 per cent in 2011-12, when the ACT reforms began, to 18.2 per cent in 2015-16, a period where most other states' dependence on the revenue rose considerably.
That compared with Victoria, with the highest dependence on the tax at 30 per cent of total revenue in 2015-16, NSW at 28.1 per cent that year and Queensland at 23.9 - all states where the dependence on stamp duty revenue rose significantly between 2011-12 and 2015-16.
