The ACT government collected almost $80 million more in stamp duty in the last 12 months than it did in 2012, despite five years of tax reform aimed at phasing out the tax.
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In 2012, the government began a 20-year program to phase out stamp duty on property sales and tax on insurance. The revenue is being replaced by increases to rates.
But stamp duty has been cut slowly and house prices have increased dramatically. As a result, the government collected $316 million in stamp duty in 2016-17, which is 32 per cent more than the $239 million in 2011-12, the year before tax reform began.
The figures were provided after Chief Minister Andrew Barr delivered the first balanced budget result in five years, for 2016-17, and as the ACT parliament debated the 2017-18 budget on Tuesday.
The government also rejected a call to release details on its future light rail network. The estimates committee on the budget recommended the government disclose the length, estimated construction timetable and costs for each stage of the tram project.
But the government said it was too early to provide the information for stage 2 to Woden, and future stages would be considered in light of "the city's future rates of growth, the utilisation rates and lessons learned on stage 1 and 2, and the territory's future budget position".
Mr Barr's $11 million deficit for 2016-17 is essentially a balanced budget and is a big turnaround from the $479 million deficit in 2013-14. It was achieved with the help of $49 million more in stamp duty than budgeted in the past 12 months.
Liberal Leader Alistair Coe told the parliament the result also came at the expense of "huge increases" in rates, fees and fines. The ACT was still taking record amounts of stamp duty, he said.
"Tell someone who just purchased a property for five or six or $800,000, as so many people in Canberra are forced to, tell them that there's no stamp duty. Tell them after they've paid $20,000 in stamp duty that it's been abolished. Of course it's a furphy," he said.
"Not only that this government then double dips by increasing the rates."
In 2012, the median price for a free-standing house was $520,000. Stamp duty on that home was $21,700. Now, the median house price is $665,000, for which the stamp duty is $20,700, a $1000 saving.
When units and townhouses are included in the equation, the savings are higher.
The median price for houses, units and townhouses together was $435,000 in 2012, attracting stamp duty of $16,900. Now, the median price in $515,000, for which the stamp duty is $13,500 - a saving of $3400.
Revenue from rates has more than doubled in five years, from $209 million in 2011-12, to $452 million in the past 12 months. The amount includes rates on about 30,000 new homes added to Canberra over the time.
Mr Coe also raised the spectre of a dramatic increase in rates based on rising property values, saying the big prices for Fluffy blocks might push rates up still further by setting a new benchmark for land values in suburbs where no empty blocks have been sold in many years.
"Is this government going to now use auction results in Hughes or in Kambah, Wanniassa, Giralang, many suburbs that haven't had an unimproved block of land sold for decades, as the new value at which blocks in these suburbs will be determined? Because if so we are potentially going to see massive increases to rates right across Canberra," he said.
But Mr Coe's suggestion appears to misunderstand the way rates are calculated and Mr Barr said he was simply wrong. While individual rates are based on unimproved land values, Mr Barr said values did not impact on the overall amount raised.
The government says stamp duty has fallen from 24 per cent to 16 per cent of tax revenue under tax reform. Rates have increased an average $452 over and above what they would have increased anyway. About $50 million in tax on insurance has been abolished in the time.
Also in the budget debate, Mr Coe said splitting the "disaster-prone Land Development Agency" into two new agencies from July did not solve the problems of the agency, and effectively doubled the cost by requiring two boards and chief executives, while halving the workload.
The estimates committee also recommended that the government consult to choose an "interesting and meaningful" subject for its first citizen's jury, but the government rejected the call, saying it would choose its own topics, guided by "the scale of community impact and ongoing reform priorities". It would choose topics that looked ahead rather than revisiting projects on which the government had already made up its mind.
The Greens' Caroline Le Couteur has warned that Mr Barr's preferred topic for the jury, compulsory third-party insurance, risked "boring the people".
