Radiology Partners Pty Ltd ACN 165 655 883 as Trustee for the Radiology Partners Unit Trust v Commissioner of State Revenue (Qld)

Radiology Partners Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Radiology Partners Unit Trust, contested the Queensland Commissioner of State Revenue's imposition of transfer duty. The appellant held property subject to duty and had six unitholders, each holding 1,000 units. Upon redeeming all units, superannuation funds acquired the units. The Commissioner aggregated these redemptions and acquisitions, issuing an assessment for transfer duty under section 30 of the Duties Act 2001 (Qld). The appellant objected to this assessment, which the Commissioner subsequently upheld, leading to the appellant's appeal to the Supreme Court.

The legal issues before the court involved determining whether the redemptions and acquisitions constituted substantially one transaction for the purposes of section 30 of the Duties Act 2001 (Qld). This section mandates the aggregation of transactions to assess transfer duty. The court had to ascertain whether the redemptions and acquisitions should indeed be aggregated and, if so, the basis on which this aggregation should occur.

The court's reasoning centred on the interpretation of section 30 of the Duties Act 2001 (Qld). The court held that the redemptions and acquisitions were separate transactions and not substantially one transaction. It concluded that there was no basis to aggregate them under section 30. Consequently, the Commissioner's assessment was deemed incorrect. However, the court found that the appellant's appeal did not comply with the statutory requirements, resulting in the dismissal of the appeal.

The final orders of the court were that the appeal was dismissed and the appellant was to pay the respondent’s costs of the appeal, including reserved costs.