Property Development is a guide to the tax side of developing property in Australia, written and published by Dotto from the Australian Taxation Office’s own pages. The ATO says that how someone goes about building or renovating properties, as a one-off or as a regular activity, affects their tax obligations and entitlements.
General informationThis guide describes the ATO’s rules as its pages read on 8 October 2026, and gives no advice on any project. Each sheet links the ATO pages it draws on, and the ATO says a private ruling is available where a position cannot be worked out.
The drawing register
This guide is drawn as a numbered set of sheets, the way a building is drawn. Each sheet below takes one question, in the order a project meets it.
| Sheet | Title | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Business, profit-making or investment | The three positions the ATO describes, the questions it asks, and what each one means for the profit. |
| 02 | GST on new residential premises | What counts as residential and as new, when a dwelling stops being new, and credits for building costs. |
| 03 | The margin scheme, worked through | Two methods on the ATO’s own builder and developer examples, then lots, stages and strata units. |
| 04 | GST at settlement, from the developer’s side | The written notice, what the buyer may rely on, and how the money meets the activity statement. |
| 05 | The records a development keeps | Margin scheme papers, an approved valuation, five years, and the yearly report of payments to contractors. |
The set at a glance
The ATO’s hub page for property development, building and renovating names two obligations to consider in any case: GST and property development, and building and construction services reporting. The rest of the set follows from those two.
- Income or capital. For a personal property investor, the gain from a renovation is a capital gain or loss; for a business of renovating, the properties are trading stock and CGT does not apply to them.
- GST on new homes. Someone who builds new residential premises for sale is liable for GST on the sale and can claim GST credits on some costs.
- The margin scheme. GST is generally one-eleventh of a property’s sale price; under the margin scheme, for an eligible seller, it is one-eleventh of the margin instead.
- At settlement. Since 1 July 2018, the ATO’s hub says, buyers of new residential premises, or of land that could be built on for them, withhold GST from the contract price and pay it to the ATO.
- Records. Margin scheme records are kept for five years after the sale, and businesses in building and construction report their payments to contractors each year.
How the sheets are drawn
Every rule on these pages comes from an ATO page linked on the same sheet, and the ATO examples keep their own invented names and figures, labelled as the ATO’s. They illustrate a rule; they are never a forecast for a real project. Figures that can change, such as the share of a price withheld at settlement, carry the date of the page they come from.
The set covers national tax only. State approvals, state taxes on development and stamp duty belong to each state and are not drawn here.