RATING SYSTEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 212, 20 June 1933, Page 6

RATING SYSTEM.

AN INQUIRY SUGGESTED.

PROBLEM FOR THE COMMISSION

(Per Press Association)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

A recommendation-that the question of '•rating should be an order of reference for the Local Body Commission which the Government proposes to set up was made to the City Council last evening by the Finance Committee. A report on the -system of rating in the city, submitted by the committee, stated that the council by a poll of the ratepayers on June 30, 1902, had adopted the system of rating on the unimproved value. At that time this system could not be applied id water rates, gas rates, electric light rates, sewerage rates or hospital and charitable aid rates. No alteration could be made in the present system of rating unless a petition signed by not less than 15 per cent of the ratepayers requesting the council to take a poll on the question of rescinding the proposal carried previously was received. In the event of it being carried, the system of. rating would. revert to the annual value which was in force prior to the adoption of the rating on unimproved value in 1902.

Regarding the report of the special committee of the Municipal, Association on local body taxation the* committee reported as follows : The recommendation that hospital and charitable aid charges should be transferred from the local authorities and made a charge on the general Government revenue is a policy question and should Ik; carefully considered by the council before coming to a decision. The system of rating property on annual value means that the "rateable value" is the rent at which such property would let from year to year, deducting therefrom 20 per cent., in the case of houses, buildings and other perishable property, and 10 per cent in the case of land and other hereditaments ; but in no case shall the value be less than 5 per cent of the value of the fee simple thereof. It should be borne in mind that whatever system is employed the council must raise the same total amount' of revenue as, after having ascertained its requirements for the year, it strikes the necessary rate in the £ of rateable value to produce this amount. In some cases an individual ratepayer will pay considerably more if the present system was on annual value. Others will, 'of course, pay less. If all rates collected by the city were levied upon the unimproved value the amounts payable, would be less in some individual eases where the value of improvements are double the unimproved values. As the city collects rates on four sets of values, viz.: Unimproved for general purposes and interest on loans, capital value for hospital, drainage and river protection purposes, annual value for water rates and improved value for fire protection purposes, it will be easily seen how difficult it is to make a comparison. The Town Clerk of Dunedin in 1923 went exhaustively into the question of rating and gave numerous instances of the advantage of both systems of rating, i.e., annual value and unimproved value, and he concluded his report by stating that the question was one of policy which must be determined by the ratepayers themselves. The report was adopted without discussion.