What RevenueSA counts as primary production
The exemption is for land used in a relevant primary production business, and RevenueSA’s list of such businesses is wide:
- growing and harvesting crops
- keeping bees
- dairy farming
- forestry, or any business that cultivates the soil
- grazing on pasture
- horticulture
- keeping poultry
- intensive agistment of declared livestock (only cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry)
- breeding and harvesting fish or other aquatic organisms
- raising livestock
- viticulture
A paddock of wheat, a flock of sheep and a vineyard all fall inside it.
Four gates, in the order a farm meets them
Size
The land has to be 0.8 hectares or more. That can be a single parcel, or several adjoining pieces of land that are all used in the primary production business.
Location
RevenueSA draws a line around what it calls the defined rural area. Despite the name, the area is mostly city: greater metropolitan Adelaide, from about Willunga in the south to Gawler in the north and from the coast to the inner Mount Lofty Ranges, plus most of the City of Mount Gambier. Neither description takes in the Yorke Peninsula. The boundary itself is the map RevenueSA reproduces on the same page, and RevenueSA can confirm which side of the line a parcel sits on.
Use
Outside the defined rural area, RevenueSA applies the exemption by itself to any single parcel bigger than 0.8 hectares that carries a primary production land use code. That code comes from the Valuer-General.
Ownership
Outside the defined rural area, the owner does not have to be the person running the farm on the land. So land let to another farmer can still qualify. Inside the area, stricter ownership tests apply (see the table further down).
When a parcel is too small on its own
A holding can include a small parcel that falls short of 0.8 hectares by itself. If it adjoins other land and the combined area is more than 0.8 hectares, the exemption is not automatic: the owner applies to RevenueSA and shows that each undersized parcel is used for primary production. Adjoining land that already qualifies on its own can count toward the total.
The application is made on RevenueSA’s online form for land tax exemption or relief, choosing primary production as the property type. RevenueSA asks for the ownership number, which sits in the top right corner of a Land Tax Assessment, the assessment number, which also appears on water and council rates notices, and documents showing the criteria are met.
The land use code behind the test
The Valuer-General gives every property in South Australia a land use code describing its main use. The code has four digits, the first of which places the land in one of ten groups, and group 9 is primary production.
To settle the code, a valuer looks at the economic use of the land, how heavily each use draws on the land and on the labour to keep it, and whether one activity is dominant enough to give the whole parcel its character. Rating bodies each map the codes to their own categories, so the Valuer-General sends owners to the authority concerned (RevenueSA, the council or SA Water) for how a code is treated.
An owner who believes the land use on a notice is wrong can lodge an objection with RevenueSA or with the council, and the Valuer-General warns that time limits apply.
Notional values for land that is farmed
A second concession works on the valuation itself. The Valuation of Land Act 1971 lets the Valuer-General set notional site and capital values that reflect how the land is actually used, rather than a more valuable use it could be put to, so a notional value comes in under market value. One kind is for primary production, the other for homes.
Land Services SA’s glossary adds the detail: the rural notional value needs land genuinely used for the business of primary production, and rating authorities use the lower figure to give owners rate relief.
If the land is inside the defined rural area
Inside the area there is nothing automatic. The owner applies and must meet every criterion, and the test changes with the kind of owner. Below, “engaged” means taking part on a substantially full-time basis in the primary production business on the land, whether on one’s own account or as an employee.
| Owner | What RevenueSA looks for |
|---|---|
| One person | The owner is engaged. |
| Two or more people | At least one owner is engaged, and any owner who is not must be a relative of one who is. |
| One company | One of four: a majority shareholder is engaged; two or more people who together hold a majority are each engaged; relatives who together hold a majority include at least one who is engaged; or the company’s main business is primary production on the land. |
| Several companies, or companies and people | The main business of every owner is primary production on the land. |
| A retired owner | The owner was engaged until retiring, a close relative is engaged now, and any co-owners are close relatives of the retired owner. |
| An executor or administrator | The person who died was engaged until their death, a close relative is engaged now, and any co-owners are close relatives of the person who died. |
For these tests a close relative is a spouse or domestic partner, a parent or child, or a brother or sister. A relative reaches further: ancestors and descendants of a person or of their spouse or partner, siblings of either, and the ancestors and descendants of those siblings.
Where to check
RevenueSA’s and the Valuer-General’s pages are linked below. The landscape levy, which follows the same land onto the council’s rates notice, is in paddock 2.