Response to CS 39: Proposed amendments to stamp duty disclosure requirements

Submission Date: 20 February 2026

This submission has been prepared by the Superannuation Committee of the Legal Practice Section and the Financial Services Committee of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia (the Committees). The Committees welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in relation to the proposed amendments to ASIC Corporations (Disclosure of Fees and Costs) Instrument 2019/1070 (the Instrument) to require stamp duty to be disclosed as an average amount over seven years in the Fees and Costs Summary of Product Disclosure Statements for superannuation products and managed investment schemes set out in CS 39 (the proposed amendments).

Alignment with APRA reporting

The proposed amendments are the outcome of a targeted review by ASIC of Regulatory Guide 97 Disclosing fees and costs in PDSs and periodic statements (RG 97). The stated purpose was that the review “may help boost investment in property by Australia’s superannuation funds” by focussing on requirements to disclose stamp duty payments, to address concerns that “have been raised that the disclosure impacts performance test results and discourages investments in property by superannuation funds”.¹

The Committees welcome and support the regulatory purpose.

However, the Committees do not support the proposed amendments on the basis that they are not appropriate to achieve that purpose, for the following reasons:

• The proposed amendments change stamp duty disclosure in PDSs but do not change stamp duty disclosure in annual or exit statements (as there is no amendment to notional clause 104B of Schedule 10 of the Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth) which requires that, in periodic statements, fees and costs are determined over the period to which the periodic statement relates). As a result, the Committee understands that stamp duty disclosure in annual and exit statements would still need to be calculated as the actual amount incurred during the reporting period, in addition to the separate calculations for PDSs on the proposed new basis.
• The performance test is based on information reported to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) under the relevant APRA reporting standards. APRA Reporting Standard SRS 332.0 Expenses and Investment and Transaction Fees and Costs (SRS 332.0) requires superannuation funds to report fees and costs to APRA on the following basis:

SRF 332.1 captures all investment and transaction fees and costs that have been charged to members or otherwise affected member balances during the reporting period. It includes all investment and transaction fees and costs that would appear in the Periodic Statement for the superannuation product …

The investment and transaction fees and costs should align to fees and costs disclosed to members to meet the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s Regulatory Guide 97 (‘Disclosing fees and costs in PDSs and periodic statements’) obligations for superannuation products in relation to fees and costs disclosure requirements for periodic statements.

• In other words, SRS 332.0 requires that trustees report fees and costs as determined for periodic statements, and accordingly a change that applies only to PDSs does not change the amounts to be reported to APRA.
• Therefore, unless APRA also modifies SRS 332.0, the proposed amendments do not change the amounts that will be counted for the performance test.

Subject to the Committee's comments in paragraph 2, 3 and 4, the Committees suggest that, if this change is implemented, the revised calculations should also apply to periodic statements—i.e. disclosure of transaction costs in periodic statements should use the same data as PDS disclosures. Alternatively, ASIC may wish to engage with APRA to modify the relevant reporting standards to align with PDS disclosures rather than periodic statement disclosures.

^{1 ASIC, ASIC to review superannuation investment requirements (Media Release 25-164MR), 13 August 2025.}

Last Updated on 03/03/2026

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